


Stuttering Hearts

by catsonfire



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Fluff, Happy Ending™, M/M, Mild Angst, Stockholm Syndrome, Supernatural Elements, Vampire Hunter!Erwin, Vampire!Armin, cliche as all fuck don't look at me, please don't look at me, smutty smut smut in the last chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-06
Updated: 2014-03-15
Packaged: 2018-01-14 17:17:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1274635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catsonfire/pseuds/catsonfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a full moon, presenting him with all of the lighting he needs for a successful hunt. It’s late enough that there shouldn’t be any uninvited company or unwanted surprises. He’s scoped the place out for long enough (bordering a week) that he knows there’s light activity inside, but never out. His reports inform him that there’s only one dormant occupant of the house and he’s fought the urge to paint a visual or form any expectations. </p><p>If there’s one thing about vampires that he’s learned from experience, aside from how to kill them, it’s definitely that they’re unpredictable beings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Piyo13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Piyo13/gifts).



> so!!! i'm still stuck in my 8th grade vampire phase, and this is the production of years of restraining myself. I'm absolutely in love with vampiric anatomy, and how you can kind of build it however you want, so this is a VERY self-indulgent take on vampires because. i do what i want. 
> 
> this is like 95% Iza's fault \o/ i mentioned the au like a month ago and she was like "DO IT" so i did it. and thus marks THE THIRD FUCKING FIC i've written for her. yodels. 
> 
> **Some trigger warnings:** Blood (obviously), sort of dubious activity, sort of stockholm syndrome. 
> 
> tumblr: boywitch.tumblr.com
> 
> SOME SONGS FOR YOU: This is the End (If You Want It) by Relient K, Safe Here by Anberlin, Do I Wanna Know? by Arctic Monkeys, and We Owe This To Ourselves, also by Anberlin.

Erwin’s never been so underwhelmed by the outside appearance of what most teenagers would consider a ‘haunted’ mansion before in his life.

It’s rickety and horrid-looking, one very well suiting for a house of the dead. It is large, though, he’ll give it that—it’s a good three stories, most likely a basement underneath. He’s rounded it a few times and spotted a storm shelter in the back, which isn’t uncommon for this area. There’s a shed, which he’d poked his head into, but the contents had just been old, rotting boards and a few skittering mice. There are dying rose bushes on either side of the large wooden porch, though there’s vibrantly green ivy creeping up the entire west side of the building (with the amount of rainfall the surrounding city seems to bring in every year, he thinks it’d be harder to get rid of the ivy than grow it, and he’d learned from his mother that keeping rose bushes alive was one hell of a job anyway).

The only thing about the entire place that catches his eye is the massive, round stained glass window on the top floor. It looks like it has an impressively arched ceiling, at that, a thin brick chimney popping out of it to the east. He can’t see through any of the plain paned windows, the heavy curtains covering them not budging in the slightest.

A glance to his watch tells Erwin it’s just a quarter past two in the morning.

It’s a full moon, presenting him with all of the lighting he needs for a successful hunt. It’s late enough that there shouldn’t be any uninvited company or unwanted surprises. He’s scoped the place out for long enough (bordering a week) that he knows there’s light activity inside, but never out. His reports inform him that there’s only one dormant occupant of the house and he’s fought the urge to paint a visual or form any expectations.

If there’s one thing about vampires that he’s learned from experience, aside from how to kill them, it’s definitely that they’re unpredictable beings.

It takes Erwin twelve disciplined, near-silent strides to take him from the rusty iron gate to the steps of the porch. He tests the bottom step with his boot, wary of its age (he’s fallen through too much wood before; his weight is predictably hard to hold up in most cases). When he’s confident it won’t cave or squeak too wretchedly, he takes the three cautious steps up onto the platform. The porch accepts him with ease, no whining or groaning under his feet as he moves to the door. The suspicion doesn’t settle into the pit of his stomach until he pushes the door open and there’s not even the slightest squeak from the hinges, no brushing of old wood against the floor.

He realizes it’s futile to curse anything now.

Any seasoned vampire would’ve known his presence the moment he’d stepped onto the property. Unless the creature is asleep, it’s probably lying in wait for him, a trap between them. All of the vampires he’d met had liked to think that they were rather clever, talented things. This one would, no doubt, think itself the same.

The entryway of the mansion is surprisingly well-loved. The hardwood floor is a little worn and scuffed in certain places, but overall rather sleek. Grand ivory stairs with beautifully and intricately carved railing wait directly in front of him though he can’t see where they lead. There are bookshelves among bookshelves lined up along the walls, a comfortable-looking chair behind an antique coffee table placed in the corner. There’s a book, as worn and tattered as the outside of the house, placed next to a pair of what appeared to be store-bought reading glasses.

_I guess immortals can’t get their hands on prescriptions,_ he thinks, fighting the urge to roll his eyes.

The contradictory inside of the mansion almost throws Erwin for a loop, if he’s honest with himself. It’s so human-like and different from the other places he’s been sent on hunts that he could easily forget that he’s on one at this very moment. His goal is clear, present and accounted for—things like this just keep him on his toes, keep him ready for more surprises. He’s alert, he’s prepared, and this is the kind of stuff he’s been trained for.

With every step he takes, he tests the floors with the edge of the boot, much like he had the steps of the porch, for any give or noise. False floors are the oldest trick in the book and he’s seen so many fall for them. He won’t let his pride suffer.

The door cracks closed behind him and he spins, expecting a figure, a face, some sign of life, but there’s nothing.

He almost laughs to himself at how cliché the moment is. As he takes one wary step back from the door, foot still searching for any signs of a trap, he calculates.

_It knows I’m here,_ he tells himself dryly. _I can wait until it gets bored, or I can run right into a damn cage. Knife on left thigh, gun in the back, rosary—_

Erwin’s world tips backwards as all of his weight is brought down to the floor—his foot had caught onto something, _stupid, stupid, stupid, your own damn fault for not looking—_ and he lands on his back with a crack. The air is forced out of his lungs and he gasps, sitting up as quickly as his body will allow, and by the time he’s breathing again—

“Hello there.”

He freezes for a fraction of a second. The voice is soft, pitch too high to be mature, too silky not to be. It’s disorienting, but he feels the adrenaline burning through his veins, raging and steering him so close to autopilot that he doesn’t realize what he’s doing until red eyes meet his. The figure is perched on the support beams of the ceiling, legs dangling and winging. He only catches a glimpse of light golden hair before the vampire is dropping down from its makeshift seat directly above him.

Body reacting quicker than his mind, Erwin releases a soft hiss of air (a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding) and rolls to the side. The momentum he creates pulls him away from his predator (prey?)  just milliseconds before it’s too late—

But there’s an ugly snap and he’s falling.

He’s falling and he’s lost his stomach somewhere back in the entryway, probably even before he’d fallen on his back the first time. Even when he’s stopped, when he’s not falling anymore, his back aches in a way he’d never imagined and he’s fighting for breath.

“Your mother should’ve taught you manners,” that silky voice tells him, thickly laced with an English lilt. He catches a glimpse of red and gold again before his eyes shut against his will and he feels himself growing limp. “It’s common courtesy to ask permission to enter someone’s home before you just do it.”

 

_+_

 

Erwin wakes with a start and a stutter. The inky blackness slowly seeps from his vision as he forces his eyes open, forces them to take in the room around him. He doesn’t doubt that he looks ridiculous, dazed and confused as he stares around what he’s assuming to still be the basement he’d fallen into. There’s a small end table in the corner adjacent to him with a candle stand, three long and flickering candles sitting snugly in their respective spaces. His knife and gun sit on the table. 

Curled up in a chair—similar to the one he’d seen in the entryway of the mansion—sitting next to the table is a sleeping boy.

_Vampire_ , Erwin corrects himself. _Christ knows how old he actually is._

He’s pale, no color to his cheeks or nose; evidence that he hasn’t fed in some time. His hair is just as golden as Erwin had thought it to be, even with just the small glance he’d gotten from before. He is literally _curled_ in the chair, his legs drawn up to his chest as he holds something rectangular in his arms. His head rests on the arm of the chair, hair splayed across his cheeks and forehead. He’s wearing surprisingly well-kept clothes—a large coat that Erwin thinks is unnecessary (it’s not cold out tonight) on top of what appears to be a wool sweater, jeans and worn-down tennis shoes. All aside from the coat, Erwin thinks that maybe the clothing really does suit him. He can’t be much older than thirteen or fourteen, considering his size and the roundness of his cheeks.

The vampire breathes slowly, steadily, his eyelashes fluttering just slightly as his eyelids move with whatever he’s dreaming. 

Discomfort settles in his chest were suspicion had been the last time he’d checked. Was he really supposed to kill a child? _Could_ he kill a child? He wasn’t dead yet, obviously, so the boy likely had no intentions of killing him.

Erwin shifts slightly where he sits, as much as he can, before he feels the ropes wrapped unkindly around his arms and calves.

He’s tied to a _fucking wooden chair._

Suppressing a groan, he rolls head before tilting it back to stare up at the ceiling. A careful square of concrete has been removed from the ceiling, big enough to fit a fully-sized grown man through with ease. He can see a slab of hardwood that he assumes is the floor from the entryway of the mansion. Thin pieces of wood are wedged perfectly, strong enough to just barely hold the slab up on every corner. They look fairly weak, though, like they could snap with ease.

“Moulding strips.”

Erwin doesn’t jerk or jump, but he almost does. He stills, slowly turning his attention to the boy sitting in the chair. He’s got that sleepy look to him, eyes not wanting to open all of the way, lips a little swollen, hair still a little messy and sticking up in certain places. He does what he can to smooth it down, managing a soft little whiney yawn as he does. He places the book on the end table (Erwin reads ‘ _Essays on the Human Anatomy’_ and almost considers it ironic) before he stands out, straightening out his sweater.

The boy smiles a little faintly as he turns his attention to the ceiling, admiring his own handiwork with no shame.

“They’re not very strong,” he says, voice tinted with mirth. “I figured you’d take it down, based on your size. It was kind of a shot in the dark, but I must admit I’m pretty proud.”

Erwin’s a little impressed, himself, and it’s hard to hide. The boy had put together three separate traps to make one more intricate trap, one that could have easily failed if he had made the wrong move, but he hadn’t. He had fallen straight into the vampire’s hands, fallen victim to his plans just the way he’d wanted.

“The false floor was a little cliché, don’t you think?” he finally challenges, and his voice is hoarser than he’d expected. Like he hadn’t just fallen an entire story onto hard concrete. “I could’ve easily gone in a different direction.”

“You fell for it, didn’t you,” the blonde boy replies dryly, eyes shining. He even smiles, an angelic little gesture that just makes Erwin all the more wary of him. He may be look like a child, he decides, but he definitely doesn’t think like one. He thinks like a predator, an owl spying on its mice. “You could have, but you didn’t. And the chances were fairly low. I was on a beam slightly to your left, so your natural reaction was to go the opposite direction. It’s just how the human mind works—no hard feelings or anything.”

The vampire steps closer to him, kicking pieces of moulding strips out of his way as he goes. There’s a little bit of blood on the floor and Erwin supposes that’s probably his. How the boy resists it, he’s not sure.

Erwin can smell the faint scent of honeysuckle.

“No hard feelings,” he repeats. He rolls the words around on his tongue and they taste bitter. “Of course.”

Erwin gives an experimental tug on the ropes. They’re tight and give him no slack. The edges of the chair press into his skin, leaving faint imprints that will likely leave bruises. His legs are tied tighter than his arms, leaving him absolutely no allowance of movement unless he wants to fall to the floor, chair and all. Movement in general is a lost cause, he decides.

He’s stuck in that damn chair until the vampire lets him free.

“I’ll make a deal with you.”

At the words, Erwin’s head snaps up and he stares at the blonde boy standing in front of him, arms stuffed behind his back, angelic little fucking smile still on his face. He looks a little smug, a little conniving, but there’s something hidden behind his eyes that Erwin can’t really place. Doubt? Faltering?

Either way, a vampire hunter striking a deal with a vampire sounds counter-productive.

“And what does this deal entail?” Erwin asks slowly, each word cautious and on-point. He doesn’t look away, even when red eyes return his gaze and stare right back. “I don’t have much on me right now.”

“You have exactly what I need, worry not.”

Erwin’s skin crawls and a tingle shoots straight down his spine. He holds a moment to himself to regret getting into this situation—he’s never failed once before—but he doesn’t dwell. He can’t dwell, or he’ll end up dead by sunrise, he’s sure. The vampire that’s holding him captive doesn’t seem aggressive or dangerous, and in fact is more of a child than a threat to him, but he can’t doubt the potential. Trifling with a vampire of any stature is what gets a person killed.

“My name is Armin.”

The hunter raises his eyebrows, a question. He receives a smile in return. It’s more genuine than the unnerving one he’d gotten just moments before.

“We should probably get acquainted if I’m going to be feeding off of you.”

Erwin’s eyes narrow.

It’s not like he hadn’t been expecting it. It’s not uncommon for vampires to try to strike deals when their own lives are on the line, but the roles are reversed now. He’s not holding a holy blade up to Armin’s neck, he doesn’t have a rosary burning into the boy’s skin, and he doesn’t have the barrel of a gun pointed directly at his heart. He’s tied to a chair, left to helplessly sit as Armin decides his fate. He’s sure he could overpower the small boy if he was released from his confines, it’d be no heavy feat, but the ropes are strong and the chair is sturdy.

In summary, the vampire knows exactly what he’s doing and he’s simply waiting for Erwin to realize it, too. He’s not confident enough to scare the piss out of the hunter, but he doesn’t underestimate himself.

“I suppose that all I gain from this arrangement is my life, then?” Erwin asks tiredly. He wishes he could stretch his legs out right about now. “I become your personal blood bag and you don’t kill me.”

Armin tosses his head to the side and stares off to a dark corner of the basement. He pretends to roll the idea over in his mind a few times, like that’s not what he’d just proposed, like he hasn’t completely thought it through, but Erwin isn’t ignorant (by his own standards, at least). He’s on equal playing ground for the first time in his life and it’s almost invigorating (knowing he’s more or less going to have the life drained out of him is much less invigorating; he’s heard that shit hurts, anyway).

Armin turns his gaze back to Erwin, but doesn’t look him in the eyes this time. He looks him over, watches the way the muscles of his arms twitch when he tries to shift a little, watches the rise and fall of his chest.

Erwin definitely feels like that mouse again.

“You should value your life more.” Armin doesn’t move away, but he shifts his weight to his other foot in one fluid motion. He moves in a way that makes Erwin uncomfortable—he’s too smooth to be real. “You’re acting like it’s _just_ your life. Like it’s not worth it.”

“Maybe it’s not worth it,” Erwin says coldly, eyes narrowing once again. The pale skin of Armin’s jaw contracts as he clenches it, and Erwin spits, “Maybe I’d rather die than help the _thing_ I kill for a living survive.”

Cold fingers grip Erwin’s chin brutally and he tries to jerk away on instinct. Armin’s skin is so cold it nearly burns him, and he finds that in itself immobilizes him. Armin’s eyes have gone dark by the time he meets them and he fights back an unwelcome shudder. He’s never really been this close to a vampire before; true enough, he’s killed plenty in the last several years, but he’s never been so _close._ He can see every detail of Armin’s irises, feel his surprisingly chilly breath on his skin, smell the surprising scent of honeysuckle from his hair or his clothes or just _him_ entirely. _So that’s where it’s coming from._

He’s so inhumanly human that it’s terrifying.

“I’ll just take your blood as an apology for coming here to kill me, then,” Armin whispers out, never breaking eye contact and never giving Erwin the chance to look away. Erwin swallows; he can’t help himself. “And maybe teach you how to you value your life and put your pride aside.”

 


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s nothing less or more that he’s expected, aside from actually being able to hear his blood flowing into the boy’s mouth. It nearly rips a shudder from him but he resists, the fear of disrupting Armin is a little too great, a little too close for comfort. He grits his teeth and bears it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here's the beginning of my many unnecessary time skips \o/

 

They don’t speak much.

Granted, they’ve only known each other for a solid twenty-four hours at this point. All Armin’s really gotten out of the man is his name because he grew tired of being called ‘hunter’.

Erwin’s irritable, and that concerns Armin. It takes the vampire the entire twenty-four hours to fully realize that he’s irritable because he’s strapped to a chair (his joints are probably sore, his back and head are probably killing him and he’s sweaty and dirty) and he has to remind Armin every single time he’s hungry because, embarrassing as it is, Armin doesn’t really remember the way human bodies work anymore. He brushes up on the book he’s brought downstairs with him but it only does enough to rouse a few splotchy memories from his own mortal days.

The food is a pretty big problem, too. After their ‘agreement’, Armin had made a trip to the nearest twenty-four hour grocery store, picking up things that look the least unappetizing. He went for things that look highly demanded based on the amount and the variety offered on the shelves. There were signs insisting that they were on sale, that they were good deals, though he wouldn’t know the average price of human food anymore. Clothing and most normal household objects were different. He actually has uses for most of them.

This, of course, means that Armin returns to his mansion with his arms full of junk food that he doesn’t realize is junk food, a few things that need to be frozen (all he had was a mini-fridge, seeing how he didn’t have much use for a standard size) that Erwin makes odd faces at, and some fruit that he remembers liking.

“Should’ve just brought me along with you,” Erwin mutters in between spoonfuls of canned soup. Armin can’t really tell if he likes the soup or hates it, but he seemed less displeased with it than the bag of _Lay’s_ and bottle of _Coca-Cola_. “It would have been a _whole_ lot easier.”

“You might’ve run away,” Armin mumbles, resisting the urge to jut his lower lip out in a pout. He stirs the soup before holding the spoon out to Erwin once again. He accepts it, although a little hesitantly. “And I’d just have to chase you and drag you back here and that would just be unpleasant for both of us.”

There are ugly dark circles under Erwin’s eyes and his cheeks and chin look like they’d prick if Armin touched them. He feels guilt—regret?—well up in his chest and he has to look away as he stirs the soup in the bowl after Erwin’s taken his spoonful.

What can he do, where he stands now?

He has options, sure, but none of them seem very advisable. He’s nervous, too; this is the first time he’s ever tried doing something like this before. It had just been convenience, too.  He’s never done anything to warrant a hunter being sent after him, at least he doesn’t think so, and he’s never bothered to keep one human around for extended periods of time. He doesn’t feed as much as he used to, too, so the situation would have been more convenient about, oh, two hundred years ago or so.

“I’ll untie you.”

Armin can’t even smile at the way Erwin’s attention snaps to him immediately. He wants to, though, because of the hopeful look the hunter has on his face now, but it draws more liability out of his chest than anything.

The vampire finds himself already reaching for the ropes, even as he speaks.

“You can’t leave, though,” he says, tugging roughly on the messy knot that holds Erwin’s left leg to the wooden leg of the chair. When he has both of the man’s legs untied, he stretches them out and lets out a ragged sigh of relief. Armin can hear his joints pop in painful-sounding ways, but the satisfaction on Erwin’s face prevents worry. “This is another deal. You’ll have access to the basement, and the first and second floors. No leaving, no entering the attic. I have barriers. I’ll know if you break our agreement. And . . . I’ll get you better food.”

Erwin regards him with blue eyes a little less dull than before. “Fair enough,” he says, voice softer, a little warmer (and if Armin’s stomach turns in a way he’s not familiar with, he doesn’t panic, he doesn’t say a thing). “I hope you have running water. I’m disgusting.”

Armin beams.

“Yeah! There’s a bathroom on the second floor that I’ll show you—it has a really lovely bath tub, and the shower head has several settings,” he blurts before shoving the half-empty bowl of soup off onto the end table. He rounds Erwin and unties the ropes with a little more struggle than with the others. “It’s the one I always use—Oh! And I have a bedroom that’ll work for you, too . . . “

The next time he sees Erwin’s face, the man’s standing at full height, stretching his strong arms over his head, popping more aching joints, cracking his neck, and he’s got this odd expression on his face that Armin can’t pinpoint.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” is Erwin’s immediate response and he shakes his head, but that look is still there. He watches Armin closely and the vampire almost feels his stomach drop and his eyes involuntarily widen. There are so many reasons, enough to list in alphabetical order, detailing exactly why letting Erwin free to roam as he pleases around his mansion is a bad idea. There are multiple reasons as to why feeding off a hunter (even though he hasn’t technically done so yet, and isn’t sure when he actually will) is a bad idea in itself. There are innumerable reasons why the way his stomach had turned earlier should have been a warning sign to begin with.

 _He might attack,_ Armin reminds himself. _He was sent here to kill me, after all. But I’ve hidden his weapons and buried the rosary. There’s not much that he can throw at me that I won’t be able to handle._

Erwin’s deep, careful voice breaks him of his reverie.

“So. Where’s that room?”

Armin can’t explain why the nerves ease from his stomach, but they do.

He smiles at Erwin and starts towards the stairs. “This way.”

 

+

 

Armin goes through far too much trouble to make Erwin comfortable.

It’s both comforting and endearing to the hunter. He still doesn’t really know how to speak to Armin, and Armin doesn’t seek him out actively unless Erwin’s outside of his bedroom already.

A long week of nothingness.

Armin has yet to come to him to feed, though, and that bothers Erwin the most. Their agreement had been that he’d allow Armin to feed off of him and he’d live. He was more pleased with the conditions now as he had almost free reign to the house (he still wasn’t sure what was in the attic), but a mansion could get boring when he was alone most of the time.

He wasn’t sure how the tiny blonde vampire did it.

He catches Armin watching him when they’re near each other more often than not. The vampire’s eyes stay on him for as long as he thinks he can get away with, which is anywhere from a couple of minutes to hours when Erwin makes himself comfortable on the balcony right after sunset where Armin loves to stay.

Erwin’s never stayed near a docile vampire enough to learn; in fact, he’s never stayed near a vampire for any longer than absolutely necessary. He’d never considered that he’d practically be a prisoner to one, let alone socialize with them. There he is, though, sitting in an iron chair on the balcony with a book he’d picked out of a full _stack_ his captor had presented him with. Armin sits on the balcony’s railing, balanced, teetering ever so slightly with gusts of wind in ways that make Erwin, admittedly, a little nervous. The boy shows no worry, though.

It would be fairly simple to leave. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be simple. There are so many escape plans he’s thought of, so many that would work. He wouldn’t come out of it unscathed, and Armin likely wouldn’t come out of it even breathing, but it would do the trick.

It would, but Erwin hasn’t made any moves to leave.

It’s driving him insane. He wants to leave, wants to get as far away from the very thing he’s spent his adult years hunting until his next hunt is assigned, but he can’t. Every time he’s noted the perfect opportunity to execute one of his many plans, his body doesn’t move as fast as his brain, and the next moment he’s realizing that he’s missed his chance.

A long week of nothingness.

Except that nothingness has been speckled with Armin. With Armin comes almost nervous small talk that merges into surprisingly long conversations about their lives, their favorite things, their least favorite things, important dates like birthdays, memories, friends.

Erwin’s learned more about a single person in such a short amount of time that he even doubts, at certain points, that the situation is even real.

He learns that Armin is just over three hundred years old (the boy will never give a definite number and he’s firm in staying that way)(he couldn’t even sway Armin by telling him that he, himself, is twenty-six). He learns that the honeysuckle scent comes from lotions and candles and soaps and the vampire tells him that his infatuation with the smell and the flowers alike was inherited from his grandfather. While he doesn’t know what the attic is, he has a pretty good idea because every time Erwin catches the boy coming down the stairs, he has books piled up to his chin. He has a varied wardrobe, from more modern clothing to outfits that resemble Victorian styles.

He’s heard Armin sing a few times, too.

(He wasn’t supposed to, of course, but the boy apparently has a habit of singing in the shower and Erwin assumes it’s because he’s been alone for so long.)

Armin dotes on attention, but is easily embarrassed when he’s given too much. He’s shy, though never afraid to state his opinion. He doesn’t have much confidence, but Erwin finds himself thinking that the boy is _brilliant_. Up until the point where he realizes Armin has yet to feed at all, he forgets that Armin’s a vampire, much less supernatural. Forever frozen at fifteen, he has lapses back into playful and energized youth and even immaturity at times.

 _Just like a kid,_ Erwin thinks almost fondly as his eyes drift over to the boy, face dusted with pinks and purples from the sunset. He’s snuggled up in a quilt as though it will trap the evening’s remaining warmth.

“You like heat,” the hunter says when Armin hops down from the rail and back onto the platform of the balcony. Red eyes find his own, eyebrows arched up in a wordless question. “You’re always in warm clothes, and you soak in as much of the evening heat as you can, don’t you?”

Armin smiles, embarrassed, and averts his gaze.

“It’s nice,” he admits, pulling the quilt around him a little tighter. “I have heaters in the attic, but it’s not the same. They don’t warm me to my bones, they just warm the surface, you know?”

When Erwin nods, he continues.

“When I was young—before I was turned, I mean—my grandfather took me to the ocean once. That’s one of the only memories I still have, and I think it’s just because of my determination to keep it.” He looks like he wants to laugh and cry at the same time. “I try to emulate the warmth of the sun from that day, but it’s hard when it burns my skin now. It’s hard to keep the heat, though, when my blood doesn’t stay warm.”

Erwin gives him a once-over, catching the way Armin fidgets a little when their eyes meet again.

“Speaking of which,” he murmurs, forcing stiffness out of his voice and trying his hardest to sound casual. He’s not scared of Armin feeding on him, not in the least—he’s sure he’s felt greater pains—but he’s not terribly excited about it either. That is the whole point of their deal, though. “You haven’t fed yet. I’m kind of surprised.”

Armin gives him a surprised, sort of cursory glance, before he’s staring off into the trees surrounding the mansion again.

“I, uh,” he starts, but his voice sort of dies in his throat. He coughs a little before continuing. “I wanted to make sure I got your permission first and all. It’d be rude if I just, you know, latched myself onto your neck like a leech.”

“That’s kind of what I expected you to do.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that!”

“I know it _now_ , at least.”

He catches Armin glancing at him from the corner of his eye and can’t help but chuckle.

“You can,” he says, marking his book and placing it on the small round table placed in front of his chair (Armin seems so prepared with the setup of his home, like he’s always prepared to want to sit somewhere and read). “You’re going to have to do it eventually. Might as well not beat around the bush so I can get used to it.”

Erwin doesn’t want to get used to it, of course. He doesn’t want to know what those fangs feel like when they sink into his skin, or what his blood feels like rushing out of his veins and into the vampire’s waiting mouth. He used to have nightmares about the very same thing. He’s an adult now, though, and he’s also kind of a prisoner. A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do, or whatever.

Armin starts towards him cautiously, wringing his hands together as his gaze flickers from the hunter’s neck to his wrist and then back to the trees like he’s waiting for something. Nothing comes, though, and he has no excuse or even any reason to find an excuse as far as Erwin knows, so he finally settles for scooting over to Erwin until he’s just mere inches away. Erwin sits up a little straighter—he doesn’t know why he’s trying to make this easier for the boy, but maybe it’s because he looks more nervous than Erwin feels—and tilts his head to the side a little, swallowing once to dispel the tension to the best of his abilities. The vampire whispers a soft warning but it’s deaf on Erwin’s ears as he focuses on Armin’s movements, Armin’s smell (always faintly of honeysuckle), Armin’s two dangerously sharp fangs stabbing right into his pulse.

It hurts like hell, of course.

There’s nothing less or more that he’s expected, aside from actually being able to _hear_ his blood flowing into the boy’s mouth. It nearly rips a shudder from him but he resists, the fear of disrupting Armin is a little too great, a little too close for comfort. He grits his teeth and bears it.

The pain’s dissipating, though, and that confuses him the most. That confuses him more than the abrupt realization that Armin’s straddling him, that Armin’s left hand is cupping his jaw and the right is gripping his shoulder. He feels like he’s being numbed at the dentist right before he’s about to have a tooth pulled out, the nerves of his neck sort of fuzzy and dead-feeling, more and more so as Armin continues to bleed him. Minutes feel like mere milliseconds and he keeps his unfocused eyes trained on the book waiting patiently on the table for him.

Only when the fuzzy sensation feels a little warm, his head swimming a little like he’s sort of stoned, does he consider the position he’s in. His heart’s beating wildly (when did that happen?), he’s disoriented and drugged-feeling, and he can feel Armin press a little bit closer to him with every passing second.

Erwin’s breath catches in his throat when the petite vampire lifts his head, sharp fangs sliding from his skin with little to no effort. He lingers, though, tongue rolling over the wound slowly, carefully, and Armin doesn’t stop and pull back until the bleeding has stopped.

He wonders if he looks as dazed as Armin does when their eyes meet, red ones a little glazed over, lids drooping halfway. It’s the first time yet that he’s seen any trace of actual color in Armin’s face. His cheeks look like they’d burn if Erwin touched them, his lips rosy and surprisingly full. Armin’s entire body is warm to the touch already and the hunter only sacrifices a short second to wonder how long they’d stayed that way, how much blood Armin had taken from him to leave him feeling the way he does. It had felt so instantaneous but he knows better—the last traces of pink and purple have been drained from the sky.

Armin rips himself away from Erwin in the next second, movement too fast for the man to keep up with. He’s stammering something, pulling furiously at his sweater before wrapping the quilt tighter around his body. He practically yells out an apology and then a thanks, before he’s scurrying back inside the mansion and running, presumably, towards the stares.

He’s probably in the attic by the time Erwin jerks back to reality. He’s still fuzzy, but he can see a little more clearly now and he’s left to stare in the space where Armin had been standing, not long enough for his brain to catch up. It’s a little chilly, now, without the body heat Armin’s stolen from him.

Even when he manages to land into his bed, mostly face-first, his thoughts are still lagging behind. He dreams of red and gold and the distracting feeling of Armin’s tongue on his neck.

 

_+_

 

Armin, astonishingly enough, plays the entire scenario off incredibly well. At least, in his own opinion. For someone who’d accidentally straddled, accidentally sort of groped his new human counterpart, and then run off in a flustered flurry, at least.

He doesn’t bring it up, and neither does Erwin (much to the blonde vampire’s relief). It’s not something he _wouldn’t_ talk about if he was provoked, but he’d much rather avoid the entire anatomy speech until absolutely necessary. He’s sure Erwin knows enough, having hunted for a good portion of his short lifespan, but there are always those little details that are too small to pick up on. Such as where warm blood immediately flows when it enters a vampire’s body for the first time in years.

The warmth stays with him for days on end, and his love for heaters doesn’t help. It’s mortifying knowing that Erwin can see the immediate rise of heat to his cheeks when he’s flustered for a good week, and Erwin is no help, smiling a little slyly every time he sees it. He even offers to let Armin feed again when the colors and warmth start to fade—Armin denies the offer, bullshitting something about not wanting to become dependent or something like that. Erwin’s response is a smile.

_Bastard._

(He’d rather not go over how much he enjoys this man’s smile—for a good part of their first week together, all he had seen had been tired looks and scowls and frowns, but now he sees smiles and grins and smirks and it’s fucking entrancing. One would think he had no shame.)

The more he learns about what Erwin likes, the more he wants to shower him with those things.

Armin’s taking notes of the things Erwin enjoys at the first sign of fancy and makes it his goal to give more of that to him. At first it’s food, but then he brings home clothes he thinks Erwin will like, and even movies (although his television is ancient and he hardly uses it, so they spend a good two hours fussing over it and eventually give up and migrate to the balcony instead).

Erwin’s presence makes him want to do stupid things. Stupid things like pressing into his skin again like the way he had when he’d fed, stupid things like begging him to spend more time with him, stupid things like staring at his lips until he finally just gets the hint and—

And Erwin’s presence is intoxicating.

 _This is some sort of pining_ , he’s sure. _And pining isn’t healthy._

He’s in a situation he considers hell, and a hell in which he’s set up for himself.


	3. three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Who can we cognominate the monsters? My kind or your kind?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh look five seconds of conflict!!   
> also levi. levi is a thing that happens in this chapter (everyone cheers) 
> 
> it's 3:26 am mostly because i forgot to post this earlier

“The attic.”

Erwin looks up from the book Armin’s given him (a surprisingly interesting historic novel about a Russian family during the cold war), eyebrows raised. Armin sits, fidgeting and squirming like Erwin’s learned he does when he’s nervous, on the edge of the couch on the next cushion over from the hunter. He doesn’t have a book this time, and Erwin’s unsure of when he’d even sat down, so he doubts they’ll be reading together in comfortable silence like the vampire so enjoys.

Their conversations are easier, now, much less tainted and tinted with tension and nerves. Armin’s relaxed enough at this point that Erwin’s definitely sure he could leave if he truly wanted to.

(He’s not so sure he wants to anymore. He still can’t bring himself to try, can’t bring himself to stay awake and steal away in the middle of the day, his weapons be damned. He could outrun Armin, cover his trails, and lay a trap or two. But he doesn’t want to hurt the vampire anymore; much less does he have the drive to actually leave.

He’s fucked.

He is so fucked.)

“The attic?” Erwin finally prompts, leaning back into the couch cushions. “What about it? I mean, aside from the fact that I’m not allowed up there, of course.”

The blonde vampire rolls his eyes and huffs, mumbling something about maybe not wanting to tell him anyway under his breath, but he smiles. He still looks nervous, though his nervous moments have dwindled down since their first few days together, but he gives his head a little shake.

“I was thinking about showing you,” he says softly, eyes wandering around the room like he’s disinterested. He’s a horrible actor, though, and sincerity works so much better on him than anything else. “I mean, if you’re interested. I’m sure you’re curious, but I’ve been wrong before. A few times. Only a few times, though, and even then, it’s just silly little things, you know—“

“If you want to show me, I’d love to see,” Erwin interrupts, forcing the sly little smile off of his face (Armin likes to ramble, and even though it’s a little endearing, it’s also terribly distracting). “Whenever you feel comfortable.”

“It’s not anything incredible, really,” Armin admits, fidgeting with his fingers. He’s got a nervous look on his face, now, like he’s afraid he won’t impress Erwin. Absently, he grabs the sleeve of Erwin’s shirt and starts off towards the attic stairs. Erwin stays in tow easily, long strides matching Armin’s shorter, quicker ones. “I mean, I’ve been working on it for a while, and it’s practically my bedroom, so it’s sort of a mess and—“

The vampire rambles the entire trip up the stairs, of books he’d inherited from his grandfather and his parents, of his messy makeshift bed—which he informs Erwin is really just a couch—of fellow vampires that he knew, but wouldn’t name, that had seen his attic and teased him for the contents. When they reach the attic door, he apologizes unnecessarily and profusely for his lack of personal filter, before pushing it open.  Armin takes one tentative step inside, peering back at Erwin with unsure eyes before guiding him into the attic by his sleeve.

“Like I said, it’s a mess.”

The attic is just like any—it’s wide and flat, no walls obstructing the layout. The ceilings are high arched just like Erwin had suspected from the beginning, antique-looking lamplights hanging from varied, even points. The hardwood of the floor looks like it’s been re-done recently, a beautiful, hardly scuffed cherry wood. There are rugs littering the open spaces. There are a few couches (one of which he can easily identify as Armin’s; the mattress is a king, stretched out from the backboard, piled to the absolute brim with pillows and cushions, a fluffy-looking comforter strewn across the mattress carelessly. There’s a bed-side table next to it with a small portable heater and a lamp. To the side there stands another heater, a sleek metal one that’s likely oscillating; that’s easily one of the least surprising objects in the room), an old-looking beanbag in the corner and a large wooden desk near the couch-bed. On the desk sits a computer, an ancient thing that looks like it’s probably broken simply from neglect.

The eye-catcher would definitely be the bookshelves.

At least sixteen large book cases stand in the very center of the room, and several line the walls opposite of the door. They’re wooden, a darker red wood than the floors.

“Wow,” Erwin breathes at last, eyebrows arched with surprise. His eyes scan over the books on the shelves, all organized and well-loved. There are books on top of the shelves where he’s not sure how Armin can reach at all, some on top of other standing books where it looks like they’ve been left until he can figure out where to put them. There are even books on the desk, a few on the couch-bed, one left sitting on the beanbag as if it were keeping his spot safe. “Books.”

“Yeah. Books.”

The room is, amazingly, bursting with character. It’s warm and personal, an inviting room if nothing else. Armin’s likely worked hard on getting it to this point.

He smiles at the small vampire.

“It’s very homey,” he says softly, fighting the urge to ruffle the boy’s hair when his nerves visibly dissipate. “I can see why you stay in here a lot.”

“Honestly, I rarely left before you came, unless I was going to bathe.” Armin grins. “When I don’t have any guests, I don’t feel like there’s really any point to leave. And my bed gets really comfortable.”

Inhumanly human.

The hunter’s stomach churns when he thinks about how he’d been planning—no, scheming—to kill this boy. This boy that stands next to him with a smile on his face, excitement in his bright red eyes, his cheeks still very faintly dusted with the red of Erwin’s blood. This boy, who has presented him with everything he needs, granted him gifts in exchange for something Erwin’s body constantly reproduces. Erwin has made no effort to suit himself to Armin, his detainer, and instead Armin has made every effort to suit himself to Erwin. Armin’s has been the least toxic environment he’s had since his years of blindness to the supernatural world. He hasn’t been living around constant fear, anger mongered from him at the simple mention of a vampire or their actions.

His chest burns with something unidentifiable and unexplainable. Armin cocks his head to the side, smile falling as he watches Erwin’s likely less-than-pleasant facial expression, a question in his eyes before he speaks aloud.

“What’s the matter?” he asks softly, hand dropping from Erwin’s sleeve like he’s suddenly realized he’d been gripping it the whole time. “Are you alright?”

“M’fine,” Erwin mumbles, managing a smile before he took a few steps deeper into the attic. Armin follows, hardly convinced. “Really, though, I like it. You must be pretty good with interior design or something. Your entire mansion screams anything but blood-sucking monster.”

He doesn’t catch Armin’s flinch, but he does turn just as the color drains from Armin’s face. The hurt in the boy’s eyes confuse him long enough to be ignorant, and when he understands, Armin’s already turning away. The boy’s too quick for him, already to his bed-couch by the time he’s steeled himself and reined in control of his mouth.

Never before has he said something without thinking like that. He’s always calculated every word, every syllable to ever leave his mouth and roll off his tongue. But he’s done it, for the first time, and he’s done it to, currently, the last person he wants to offend or hurt. He doesn’t know when he started caring so much about Armin’s feelings, or Armin in general, but it’s a realization he’ll save to contemplate for later.

“Armin, I’m sorry,” he says, taking a few steps towards the boy. That poignant churning in his stomach is back. “I didn’t mean it like that. I know you’re not—“

“I’d like you to leave, please.”

Armin’s voice is hollow, detached, and Erwin’s chest stings from it. He’s never heard Armin sound so lifeless when he’s normally so personal, so warm.

“I’ll leave if you want me to, I promise,” Erwin murmurs when he reaches the boy. He can’t risk stepping over any boundaries with Armin, not now at least. His fingertips barely touch Armin’s wrist, and when the boy doesn’t move away or flinch, he continues, “But I don’t want you to think that I think of you as . . . _That_. And I’m sorry for even saying it. That was out of line.”

“There are vampires,” Armin starts, after reeling in a deep, slow breath. “That can’t control themselves. We call them ferals.”

The boy’s voice is less hollow now, but still not as lively as it had been before. Erwin thinks that maybe he’s on the right track, that he can turn this around before it carries on any longer. He lets his fingers wrap around Armin’s wrist.

“Ferals can’t think for themselves, let alone follow orders. They just do what’s natural to them. They have the instincts of a newborn vampire, wild and mindless and bloodthirsty. Even to us—to the vampires that can control themselves and have no wish to kill or wreak havoc—they’re a nuisance. They’re at the bottom of the totem pole, more or less. Those are the blood-sucking monsters.”

Armin half-turns and fixes his gaze on Erwin. His eyes are red and his cheeks are a little splotchy.

“Ferals are what you hunters should be killing.”

Erwin swallows a lump he isn’t prepared to find. He can almost feel what’s coming next, he can already feel the guilt pooling in the pit of his stomach.

“I have four dead friends, you know,” Armin says softly, voice gentle now. He looks down. “That’s not your fault, of course. The hunters who killed them are dead now. My friends—they weren’t ferals. They were like me, mindful of humans. But they were sweet people with personalities and thoughts and feelings. Yet, tell me why they were killed.”

“I can’t,” Erwin replies almost immediately. “We aren’t given explanations. We’re just expected to hunt.”

“You know nothing about the vampires you’ve killed.”

Armin stares up at him once again.

“You have no idea what kind of people you’ve killed.” He looks tormented, conflicted, for a short moment, but his determination is back. He looks a little angry, like he’s ready to throw Erwin up against the nearest wall and scream in his face, but he doesn’t move. “You know nothing about them. If any of them have said a single word to you, I can promise they weren’t feral. Those that have spoken to you, though—”

Erwin bites the inside of his cheek. Armin sees, and his gaze softens.

“Not to say you’re a horrible person,” he whispers, his free palm pressing to Erwin’s cheek. “Of course not. But . . .”

Erwin feels sick.

“Who can we cognominate the monsters? My kind or your kind?”

Erwin’s always heard vampires called mindless killers. They’ve been stigmatized since he was young, labeled murderers. Hunters have been killing vampires with these mindsets for centuries.

Centuries worth of dead innocents; exactly what he’s tried to prevent.

“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice a little ragged and tired but his apology is sincere. Armin’s eyebrows rise for a moment, but he smiles a little reassuringly and opens his mouth to speak. “No, I’m sorry. You don’t really have to say anything. If you still want me to leave I will.”

Armin lets his hand drop from Erwin’s cheek and he shakes his head.

“You don’t have to leave,” he says, shrugging a little. He gently tugs his wrist away from Erwin’s grip, and the hunter flexes his fingers from the loss. “Um. You can sit wherever you like! And you can take any books, just make sure to bring them back up here. I’m a light sleeper, but don’t feel bad if you come up here and wake me up or something, because I’m kind of lazy and I’ll probably just go back to sleep. But if you need some help, don’t be afraid to wake me up and ask, okay?”

And just like that, Armin’s back to normal. It’s sobering and gives Erwin a slight sense of whiplash, but he can’t dwell when it comes to this vampire. He’s found that rolling with the boy’s flow is easier.

“Actually.” Erwin smiles a little. “I know you said no the other day, but I was wondering if you wanted to feed now? I really don’t mind.”

The little bit of warmth still left in Armin’s body colors his cheeks.

He knows Armin can smell his blood when they’re so close. He doesn’t move away.

It might be a bit selfish, but he wants to see that look from before on Armin’s face. He wants those flushed cheeks again, the full, red lips, the glazed-over look in his eyes. He’s dreamed about the quick second before Armin had ripped himself off of Erwin when he’d fed the first time. Dreaming, of course, isn’t as good as the actual thing.

Armin looks hesitant, but when he takes a slow, cautious step towards Erwin, he knows he’s won this time.

“Maybe a little,” the vampire mumbles, eyes focused on Erwin’s neck where he’d bitten before. “But I’m not taking as much as I did last time. You hardly had any energy last time. And I can’t reach it from down here, you know. You’re too damn tall.”

Erwin chuckles softly and seats himself on the couch-bed. Armin’s a little hesitant this time, gingerly crawling over the man, flush still lightly coloring his cheeks, and he hovers above him (Erwin assumes he’s embarrassed after the last time). His fingers tentatively touch Erwin’s shoulder before he holds onto them for the support he needs. He looks Erwin in the eyes once, a sheepish little smile on his face, before Erwin nods. He’s leaning down, then, carefully avoiding sensitive nerves and muscles, before he bites in.

This time, now that he knows what to expect, Erwin tries his hardest to focus. Time does move a little slower, but it’s not any easier to handle.

He focuses on the little laps of Armin’s tongue on his neck as he drinks in his prize. The boy’s fingertips grip his shoulders hard. Armin shakes a little and Erwin thinks he’s trying to restrain himself, trying to hold control over the actions, but a throaty, muffled little moan from the vampire forces his senses into overdrive and all he really cares about is having Armin a little closer to him.

Erwin’s hands find Armin’s thighs, just above the backs of his knees. His grip is light at first, but then he kneads gently, coaxing the boy to rest against his chest. Armin practically melts, sinking into him with a happy little hum. When the fuzziness overtakes Erwin, this time he welcomes it. Armin warms just as quickly as the last time and even Erwin feels like maybe he’s on fire. He lets his swimming head lightly rest against Armin’s, eyes closing.

He soaks in the sensations. He can hear and feel Armin’s breath, the sound of his blood and the sound of Armin swallowing each time. He can feel Armin shudder a little against him like he’s trying to overcome himself and pull back before he’s sucked into the flow and doesn’t stop soon enough. He’s so warm and so close and Erwin’s head is buzzing and he doesn’t really want Armin to stop yet.

But Armin does stop (Erwin decides it’s probably not a bad idea after all, as he can hardly focus on his own thoughts). He slowly pulls back, hands unsteadily flittering across his shoulders and the back of his neck, not sure where they should land.

Erwin gets exactly what he wanted when he opens his eyes again and forces himself to lift his head. He gets that glazed-over look, the flushed cheeks, the red lips. Armin watches him, eyes unfocused, pupils blown in a way he’d not been sure possible before. The longer they hold eye contact, the less Erwin is really sure if the situation is real. His lids feel heavy, his hands feel like stone on the backs of Armin’s thighs and his heart feels like it may very well jump straight through his chest (but that would be inconvenient, because he would die and Armin would have nobody to feed off of).

“I’m . . .” Armin starts, and Erwin fears he’s going to ask to be let go (because of course he’ll do as Armin asks, he just won’t really want to). The words die on Armin’s tongue, though, as his eyes slowly trail down Erwin’s face and stop at his lips. Subconsciously, the hunter licks them, realizing how dry they are, a little cracked but luckily not bleeding. “I’m just gonna, ah . . .”

Erwin feels hands in his hair and he’s already leaning forward.

It’s a little embarrassing how they miss each other’s mouths entirely the first time, but Armin laughs quietly, a soft little huff of warm breath against Erwin’s cheek, before he re-angles himself. The second time is the charm and their lips finally meet, slow but sure. Erwin thinks this is the first time he’s touched Armin and not received some level of uncertainty.

It’s an oddly chaste kiss for the way they’re pressed so close, Armin’s hands in Erwin’s hair, Erwin’s hands on Armin’s thighs. Erwin pulls Armin down for another kiss after he pulls away, though, and the soft, high-pitched little sigh the boy breathes against his lips reassures him.

Tentatively, he rolls his tongue across Armin’s lower lip. The hunter can feel Armin shudder against him, feel his breathing stutter gently, before he parts his lips rather eagerly for him. It’s almost too hot, now, but it’s not enough to warrant him to stop. He prods Armin’s tongue with his own, teases the vampire’s lips and tongue between his teeth before licking over them to sooth them. His hands wander up on their own and he doesn’t really stop to _think_ before he’s grabbing Armin’s ass through his jeans, kneading lightly like he had with his thighs. The vampire breathes out a pleased moan into his mouth and sinks down onto Erwin’s lap, inch by inch.

The taste of coppery blood on Armin’s mouth should repulse him, but it just makes him want the boy a little bit more than he did before—and when did he start wanting him so much to begin with?

“Oh, gross.” 

Erwin feels Armin jump and pull away as quickly as his current state will allow. He half-turns, body still facing Erwin, hands still in his hair, to stare dazedly behind them from where the voice had come from.

The man standing in the doorway is short, a little smaller than Armin, and in Erwin’s sort of groggy state, he thinks that maybe he looks a little familiar with his sharp and angular features (and his face contrasts heavily with Armin’s soft and round one). He has a hip jutted, his arms crossed over his chest. His black hair is cropped short, his eyes a blazing bright red, skin paler than Armin’s. He’s dressed casually, a white button up tucked into his black jeans, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“Levi?” Armin asks softly, relaxing against Erwin once again. Absently, as though nothing had happened, he twirls tiny locks of Erwin’s hair in his fingers. “Why’re you here? Mmm . . . You don’t usually come until it gets colder out. Where’s Eren and Mikasa? Hanji?”

“Brat’s in town with the car. He dropped me off right outside the border. Hanji’s back at home, Mikasa’s with her. And I’ll tell you in a minute.” The man has an accent that Erwin can’t really place—it’s not quite as silky as Armin’s voice, voice not as gentle. “First of all, who’s this giant oaf? I didn’t realize you had any toys. It smells like blood and horny teenagers in here.”

“He’s not a giant oaf,” Armin mutters defensively. “His name is Erwin. And he’s kind of my hostage.”

“Kind of your hostage—“

Levi cuts himself off as he takes a few quick strides towards the pair, heavy-lidded eyes narrowing as he closes in on them. Something akin to recognition, similar to what Erwin had felt a twinge of before, flickers across his face.

“Oh _hell_ no.”

 

+

 

“Make yourself decent, kiddo,” Levi calls over his shoulder as he shoves Erwin down the stairs. The hunter stumbles from the force of the push, hardly gaining his footing in time, but he manages and resolves to working his way down the rest of the stairs. He really doesn’t want to get pushed again. In his position, he would likely fall and crack his skull. “And you, sir. You are fucked.”

Erwin almost wants to make a joke, now, simply because he thinks this vampire is a little too arrogant, a little too confident in himself, but he bites his tongue. Said arrogant, over-confident vampire grabs him by the shirt and slams him up against the nearest wall before he can.

“You’re going to explain why you’re here,” Levi seethes, hissing his words through his teeth. “I don’t care if you’re half-stoned to hell because of pretty boy’s pheromones. You’re not getting out of this.”

“I didn’t try to get out of it,” Erwin mumbles and Levi pulls him away from the wall only to slam him right back up against it. He’s pretty strong for his stature. There’s no getting away from him, surprisingly enough. “I came here on a hunt. He caught me. We made an agreement.”

“You really have shit luck with hunts, don’t you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Greece. About two years ago. You were twenty-four, correct? I got away from you, Erwin Smith.”

Erwin narrows his eyes, as though it would help him focus. His head is still fuzzy but Levi’s voice is sobering him surprisingly quickly. He already can’t consider him much of a joy to be around, though he can appreciate his brute strength and determination. Even then, though, his facial expressions are blank and dry, while his voice portrays all of his emotion and it’s getting to be a little creepy and even more familiar.

He remembers, of course, after a few seconds of thought. A vampire nicknamed the ‘angry midget’ among hunters, well-known for escaping and his vulgar language. He doesn’t remember any reports on his actions aside from harming a few select hunters (and it was arguable that they deserved it, something he was still not sure if he was ready to admit to; after being lectured by Armin, he wasn’t sure what to think).

“I was called back home,” Erwin says at last. Greece had been tricky. “They needed me for an emergency hunt.” He almost spits out, _You were less important._

“Went running back home,” Levi says, an amused lilt to his voice that betrays his expression, though his lips twitch. “Not very surprising for a hunter.”

“If I remember correctly, I left a nice-sized gash on your back.”

Levi’s gaze hardens into a glare. He pushes away from the hunter, dusting any imaginary dust off of his shirt and straightening out nonexistent wrinkles like he’d just touched filth (the disgusted look on his face is certainly something to work off of). The shorter man turns a steely glare to Erwin, who doesn’t flinch.

“Yeah. A nice-sized fucking scar. But that’s not what I’m here for. That’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“And what is it you wanted to talk to _me_ about?” Erwin asks, a little incredulous. Maybe he’d deserved being slammed up a wall a couple of times for damaging Levi’s poor, poor, prissy skin, but nothing else that had happened was really Levi’s business. As far as he knew, at least. He was almost intimidated when he thought about all of the possibilities of the situation. Had he just got caught groping on some vampire’s supernatural boyfriend? He doubted it.

“Don’t you lay a fucking finger on that boy,” Levi growled, jutting a long finger towards the stairs. “And you know exactly what I mean. Don’t dare hurt him, you piece of shit. We don’t trust your kind, and we have good reason not to. But don’t think you can just get into this _thing_ you two have, have a nice quick fuck with a pretty little vampire, kill him and be on your way. That’s not how this is going to work, and if that’s what you’re thinking, you can walk your stocky ass out right now. I’ll take the blame.”

When Erwin doesn’t budge, only cocking an eyebrow at the short vampire, Levi snorts.

“Good. Now. Armin, I know you’re listening, come on down.”

There’s a soft squeak from up the stairs, and Armin slowly shuffles down the stairs. He takes one step at a time, staring down at his feet, avoiding eye contact with either man at all costs. His cheeks are a brilliant ruby red and Erwn has to suppress a groan. _If only this asshole hadn’t shown up out of literally nowhere,_ he thinks bitterly, shooting Levi a curt little glare. The man grins a shit-eating grin, white teeth and fangs flashing briefly, before Armin’s attention is on both of them.

“Now,” Armin managers, voice a little unsteady. He looks less dazed than before, though, and he’s standing a little straighter. He’s grabbed a large, fluffy sweater and draped it over himself and Erwin’s pretty sure it’s to keep the extra heat on his body for longer. “What did you come here for? You don’t just show up for nothing, Levi. That’s not like you.”

“It’s definitely not for nothing,” Levi murmurs, leaning up against the wall he’d just shoved Erwin up against. The hunter, in turn, moves away, a little closer to Armin, and Levi’s lips twitch in amusement again. “No, I figured you had a little snack running around, even though you’ve never really done that before, because even you wouldn’t be clumsy enough to let a human slip past your radar. At least not your standard issue.”

Erwin wants to roll his eyes. Standard issue.

“That’s not the big deal.”

“And what is?” Armin prods, grimacing a little.

“I don’t know if your barriers have fallen without you realizing them or something, but you have another hunter on your turf right now.”

He jabs his thumb in Erwin’s direction.

“Probably looking for this one.”

 


	4. four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are two perfectly fine pomegranates sitting on the counter. That is the real problem.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND EREN COMES AROUND THIS TIME (MORE CHEERING) 
> 
> sorry if i'm updating this too quickly [yodels]

 

A brunette boy walks through the front door a little later, after Armin’s calmed down more and is willing to sink down into his chair behind the small table in the entryway living room. He gives Erwin, who’s leaning up against the wall near Armin’s chair, a short little nod, and Levi, who’s leaning up against the wall opposite them, a grin and a wave. He disappears into the kitchen with three large paper sacks balanced in his arms, maneuvering himself through the mansion like he’d lived there for years before Erwin had come along. He doesn’t get a good look at the kid until he’s finished putting up his things and joins them all out in the entryway.

He’s really not much of a kid, after all, probably close to his own age, maybe a few years younger. He’s got bright blue-green eyes that shine each time he earns a look from the smallest vampire in the room. He’s obviously human, pulsing with energy that Erwin just doesn’t have right now.

That fuzzy feeling and white-hot burning sensation might be gone now, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be exhausted.

Armin jumps up from his chair to give the brunette a quick, tight little hug and a greeting. They talk for a minute—words of which Erwin doesn’t focus on—their gestures and expressions are relaxed, sort of fond and Erwin’s sure they’re friends.

He can’t deny that it’s nice to see Armin that way with someone.

“Erwin,” Armin says, and Erwin hushes the sudden flutters in his stomach. “This is Eren. He’s a human, obviously, like you.”

“Not a hunter, though,” the brunette—Eren—says, shuffling over to Erwin and holding out his hand to shake. His handshake is strong and firm, more or less reflecting a more suppressed aspect of the way he holds himself. He’s confident, but not overly so. “But I am human. I’m basically what you are to Armin, but to Levi.”

Eren jerks a thumb towards Levi, who stares at him unkindly, daring him to do or say something that he doubts he wants to do or say anyway.

“He feeds off of me, and I get room and board.”

“You get more than room and board, kid,” Levi mutters, though his gaze isn’t unpleasant towards Eren. He looks like he wants to try to smile a little bit, if it wouldn’t kill him. “You sure as hell spend my money as you please. What did you buy, anyway?”

“Just some junk, and some of Armin’s favorites. You know, the usual,” Eren replies, giving a quick bounce of his shoulders. He’s suddenly grinning, though, eyes fixed on Armin. “I got you a new book, too, of course, but it’s out in the car. I’ll give it to you later.”

Armin’s eyes shine as he stares up at Eren and Erwin decides he likes him.

“Okay, cute, don’t flirt,” Levi drawls, rolling his eyes as he looks over the three in front of him. “You’re forgetting the big deal. You know, the reason we showed up out of nowhere during the asscrack of summer when I’d much rather be sleeping or something.”

“First of all, you’d spend more time soaking in cold water than doing anything else,” Eren mutters, rolling his eyes right back. “And second, what if it’s not a hunter?”

“It’s a hunter. They give off this . . . Sort of arrogant air. Like, you can smell their douchebaggery from miles away.”

Levi sneers at Erwin, who shrugs his shoulders in return. Armin looks like he’s holding back laughter.

“Whatever,” Eren sighs. “Then what should we do? Lay traps? Sit around and wait?”

“No traps!” Armin hisses, tone a little too harsh, volume a little too sudden to prevent any of the three men in his entryway living room from jumping. Three sets of eyes, including Erwin’s, are on him, and the heat rises to his cheeks in an instant. “Th-The fauna in the area. And a lot of reckless kids come through the woods to get to the mansion. One of them might get hurt. If someone gets hurt around here, they might do an investigation, and I can’t just up and leave, you know!”

“ . . . No traps, then,” Levi says, scratching the back of his neck. Erwin watches as he examines his nails. “We can just sit around and wait. We’ll need to keep searching the territory until one of us runs into him.”

“When do we start?” Eren asks, eyes alight.

“By _us_ and _we_ ,” Levi corrects, frowning. “I mean Erwin and me.”

The brunette shoots a disappointed look to his vampire and Levi shrugs in return. The boy shuts his mouth, though, and doesn’t argue, for which Erwin silently praises him. He’s likely saved himself for some level of monumental argument. He can’t see Levi as the type to give in too easily.

“Then you two be careful,” Armin says, though his eyes are Erwin. He doesn’t look away, even when Levi scoffs and leaves the room for somewhere upstairs, destination ultimately unknown. Erwin couldn’t care less. “I mean, I know you’re aware of how dangerous hunters can be, and especially if you know what kind of people you work with . . .”

Armin trails off, nervous look haunting his features even as he tries to seem confident, supporting of Erwin.

“It’ll be alright,” Erwin reassures, smiling a bit. “I know what to expect.”

“Good!” Eren says, voice a little too loud for the conversation. He’s smiling and pressing a hand to Armin’s shoulder as he peers down at the small vampire. “Go ahead and go out to the car so I can give you that book, yeah? I’ll be out there in a second.”

Armin’s hurrying out the door with minimal argument, excitement replacing his nervousness like a magic trick. When he door slams behind him, Eren looks a little smug as he turns his attention to the hunter. Eren takes a second before speaking again, eyes raking up and down Erwin and he’s sure he’s being sized up (he thinks that might be the biggest difference between Eren and Levi, because it reflects their personalities. Eren seems a little wary, a little cautious, but doubtfully ready to throw himself into something he’s not quite ready for. Levi hadn’t bothered to size him up at all, so sure of himself).

“Dude really loves his books,” he says softly, affectionately. “I’ve never seen a _grown man_ get so excited over a stack of bound papers, let alone a centuries-old vampire.”

Erwin’s not really expecting some violent speech from Eren like he’d gotten from Levi, but he’s expecting exactly what he gets instead.

“Look, I know you seem like a pretty cool guy, but you probably already know not to fuck with Armin,” he murmurs. His voice is a little lower and he steps closer to Erwin to make sure he can hear him. “There are more than just me and Levi who won’t be happy. But luckily, I don’t think we have much to worry about.”

And like that, Eren’s smiling again.

Erwin feels like he’s just gotten some sort of makeshift stamp of approval. Eren’s not very intimidating, he has to admit, but it gives him a sense of accomplishment nonetheless.

“Now! I’m gonna go give him his book and not keep him waiting any longer.” Eren’s smiling already, trotting his way towards the front door. He pauses at the handle and turns back towards the hunter, a sly little smirk at his lips. “Armin loves pomegranates, by the way.”

And he’s out the door.

_Pomegranates?_

 

+

 

Erwin and Levi have started their rounds around the property, more or less guarding him from any outstanding danger. Erwin takes the daylight (and he complains once or twice by saying that the sunlight has started burning his eyes—Armin feels a little bad because Erwin has, more or less, adjusted his schedule to his own and hasn’t seen much daylight in weeks, but Levi just tells him to suck it the fuck up) while Levi takes the night. Strangely enough, there are no teenagers during the weekend that Levi stalks outside of the mansion, like they’ve all been warded off or warned by their fellow classmates that there’s nothing much exciting going on around the property.

Erwin’s taken to only staying awake during the day long enough to make his rounds. Sometimes he sleeps curled up on a couch in an office he’s grown a fancy for until Levi finds him and rolls him off and onto the floor, yelling something about using a bed. Other times, he finds his way into Armin’s library and picks out a book, as he’s been informed he’s allowed to do, and ends up falling asleep in one of Armin’s reading chairs.

Despite the way Levi likes to gripe and mutter at Erwin like he hates him, Armin actually starts to think that maybe they’ve grown strangely fond of each other. The vampire could be mistaken, but he starts to notice Levi softening a little, Erwin relaxing a bit more around him and purposely saying things to playfully push on his buttons.

He thinks, absently, that maybe they’d make a pretty interesting team together, if the time came.

There are no problems for the better part of the next week. There are no harmless civilians to worry about and so far no real sign of the hunter apparently stalking around Armin’s territory.

There are two perfectly fine pomegranates sitting on the counter. That is the real problem.

Armin glares at them every time he steps into the kitchen for the next two days. His dirty looks do nothing and they’re hardly moved, all aside from the one time he catches Erwin picking one up, inspecting it, and then sitting it back down in its spot. Nobody really mentions them, though, and he thinks it’s some sort of divine punishment. Levi obviously told Eren to pick them up to torture him with.

The only aspect of the vampire biology that Armin can truly complain about is that he can’t eat food. His body can’t properly digest it, and just forces it right back up an hour or so later (and he’s always been weak to throwing up; tears, shaking, the whole ten yards). He couldn’t find it worthwhile.

He was starting to think about it the more he looked at those fucking pomegranates, though.

_+_

 

Armin stares at them until they go bad, mushy spots forming on the outside of the fruit, and then he dutifully throws them in the garbage. It’s only a few days, fortunately enough for him, and he overhears Eren muttering under his breath about not picking up good ones. He overhears the brunette human asking Levi for tips on picking up fresher ones.

There are more fucking pomegranates the very next day, ripe but fresher than the ones before.

And Erwin keeps giving him these charming smiles, sort of pointed, softer than he’s ever seen the man smile, and he has a hard time keeping away from the hunter. He finds himself constantly wanting to be closer to him, always finding excuses for little brushes of skin. Erwin never seems bothered by it, and if Armin’s not wrong, he almost thinks the man’s doing his own fair share purposely, too.

There’s still no sign of the hunter they’re supposed to be finding to keep his mind off of pomegranates and Erwin.

Armin kind of wants to punch someone. Levi’s probably to blame.

 

_+_

 

“Do you like pomegranates?”

Armin jerks his eyes away from the two perfect and ripe-looking pomegranates sitting on the counter in front of him. He swivels around in the bar stool, smiling a little sheepishly, hands in the air like he’s surrendering after getting caught red-handed.

Erwin stands in the entryway of the kitchen, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the door frame. He grins a little bit at the slight flustered look Armin’s sure he’s got on his face.

“I do,” Armin admits, rubbing his forearm as his eyes trail over Erwin on auto-pilot. He thinks it’s fair to look but not touch. “Or, at least, I did. When I was a human.”

“Vampires can’t eat? I know it’s not necessary, but . . .”

Erwin trails off, tilting his head to accent the open-ended statement.

He only really knows the fundamentals. Armin figures he hasn’t really had the opportunity to do some sort of in-depth study on vampires, and he can’t really blame him. When his living didn’t require knowing everything, why would he bother? It wasn’t like he wanted to build a relationship with a vampire or anything.

“Nah, anything that enters our body ends up getting forced right back out, if it’s not blood,” Armin explains, a sheepish smile on his face. “It really sucks, too. I haven’t had a good pomegranate in, like, three hundred years. Okay, that’s a lie—I tried one a few years back because I _really_ missed them, but that was a bit of a bust. Ate the whole thing in one go, a-and I ended up just throwing it all up. It was . . . Gross, really. I don’t really know why I’m telling you this . . . Sorry. I’m—I’m doing the thing again. The rambly thing.”

Heat lifts to Armin’s cheeks and he contemplates aiming his forehead at the sharp edge of the bar countertop.

At the sound of Erwin’s chuckle, he has to fight off true mortification and he braves one sneaky little glance towards the hunter. He’s straightened up and he has this stupidly brilliant smile on his face as he peers between Armin and the fruit sitting on the counter in front of him.

“What?” he asks, though the question comes out as more of a squeak than anything else.

“Show me how to de-seed one,” Erwin says, stepping over to the counter where Armin sits. He snags the prettier-looking pomegranate (in Armin’s opinion, at least; it’s a deep red color, free of bruising or discolorations and he thinks that Eren definitely put out some effort to find the best ones the store had to offer for this time of the year) and holds it in front of Armin, an odd sort of light to his eyes. He looks a little excited, maybe. “My mom used to do it for me when I was little, and I haven’t had one since then. You can just kind of verbally walk me through it so I won’t have to rely on you too much next time.”

A whine pours out from Armin’s surprise-parted lips before he can stop himself. He slumps down in his stool a little, childishly pushing out his lower lip in a pout.

“That’s just mean,” he grumbles. “Wanting me to help when I can’t eat any . . . I’m gonna go back to the library. You can figure it out on your own.”

“Please?” Erwin’s got this apologetic little smile—damn his smile, damn it to hell—at his lips that makes Armin’s heart do some sort of triple back handspring. “I have an idea. I don’t wanna ruin the pomegranate, you know.”

Armin’s already agreed, he realizes, but not verbally.

It’s a little disturbing, maybe, kind of, but he thinks that there’s not really a reasonable favor imaginable that he would turn down from Erwin. It seems a little extreme, in retrospect, but it’s the truth. Teaching him how to de-seed a pomegranate is probably one of the tamest things he could do for the hunter.

“Okay,” he drawls, hopping down from his stool and wandering over to a cabinet taller than himself. He crawls onto the countertop below the cabinets and balances on his knees (instead of taking the obvious course of action and just _asking for help_ —though what can he say, after being alone for so long) before opening one of the doors and shifting through the contents, mostly cooking utensils bought for Eren to use for his visits. “But I’m only going to show you once, got it?”

“Got it.”

Erwin obediently accepts a glass bowl when Armin hands it to him, along with a knife and a heavy soup spoon. The hunter lays them out on the counter where Armin had been sitting and pulls another stool up next to his before washing his hands thoroughly and plopping down next to the small vampire.

It’s a surprisingly grueling process, Armin thinks, teaching a grown man how to de-seed a pomegranate. Erwin’s good with the knife, but his patience seems to be a little selective. He does well, though, following Armin’s instructions to a T. Armin tells him to score the edges about an eighth of an inch, and he does exactly that, to the best of his abilities. He pops a few of the seeds when he’s breaking the pomegranate apart, effectively staining his shirt (and it’s the first time he’s worn this one—it’s one of the new shirts Armin’s made a point of buying for him—but he just shrugs it off and continues).

It takes an almost hilarious half hour for Erwin to successfully fill the bowl with seeds and pick out the inedible membrane of the fruit.

He looks a little too proud of himself.

“Perfect,” Erwin hums, voice dropping low as he gathers a few of the seeds into his hand. Armin’s just about to ask what his idea was, why they’d done this entire thing in the first place, when the hunter pops the handful of seeds into his mouth and grins a little slyly at him.

“Oh, you ass,” Armin mutters, crossing his arms over his chest and narrowing his eyes. “You didn’t have an idea after all, did you? You just wanted to eat the damn thing in front of me. You’re more conniving than I thought. I think I might actually hate you.”

“Can I kiss you?”

Armin’s eyes widen and his eyebrows shoot up into his hairline so quickly he’s not really sure he _has_ eyebrows anymore. He feels like he’s missing some very vital information, like an entire portion of their conversation has just been completely erased from his mind.

“I—Uh—“ he manages, cheeks on fire while his back straightens and his fingers attempt at working holes into the shirt he’s wearing. He doesn’t get it, he really doesn’t get it—until he does, and then he still struggles for words. He’s dumbstruck, hit with something he’d never have expected from someone he’d been so ready to kill just weeks ago, someone that had been ready to kill him. “Oh. _Oh_.”

Erwin arches one brow, a silent repetition of his question. He’s obviously fighting to hide his amusement and Armin should probably give him props. He feels stupid.

“I-I mean—Yeah. Yes. That would be—Sure.”

Erwin chuckles and leans over, fingers grasping the edge of the stool that Armin sits on and carefully pulling him closer. The screech of the legs of the stool is lost to Armin’s ears and replaced with the obscene, noisy sound of his of his heart beat (that he’s starting to consider more of a hindrance and distraction than anything else) when his mind finally registers that Erwin’s hands aren’t going anywhere and their faces are mere inches away.

 _We’ve done this before_ , he reminds himself, but his hands are still a little shaky when they find Erwin’s shoulders. _Like, yeah, maybe it’s easier when you’re less conscious of your actions, but still! You’ve definitely already had your tongue in his mouth. This is basically the exact same thing. Breathe. He’ll freak out if you don’t._

Armin clenches his eyes shut, too tight for comfort, as Erwin leans closer to kiss him, open-mouthed and a lot like fire.

The taste of the fruit is nearly overwhelming when their tongues meet at first; he hasn’t tasted much more than blood for a while, and it’s been such a long time that he’s nearly forgotten why he loved pomegranates so much as a human. Now he remembers, though, and his body relaxes at the sweet-tart flavor, a smile fighting its way to his lips.

His nerves melt away quickly, their mouths working fluidly and slowly off of each other. Erwin’s taste—a flavor he still remembers from the last time—mingles with the flavor of pomegranate in a way that makes the vampire shudder and tangle his fingers in Erwin’s hair, effectively mussing the usually neat locks. Erwin steals his breath, knocks it out of his chest, but sighs softly into his mouth as if to return it while his thumbs rub against the sides of Armin’s thighs through his pants. It’s so pleasant, so intimate that it makes Armin’s head buzz and he knows it’s not Erwin’s blood this time. It’s wholly Erwin, all his fault.

They kiss like this, learning each other’s mouths (it’s unnecessary, Armin thinks, that makes it all the more important to him) until the flavor fades. Erwin pulls away first, the same way he’d started it, and his breathing is a little rougher despite the slowness of the kiss, the lack of urgency. 

Armin opens his eyes just in time to follow Erwin’s lashes as he opens his own. He seems to struggle to focus at first, unable to decide on one specific part of Armin’s face to really pay attention to. Those blue eyes—Armin thinks maybe his had been about that pretty sky blue color at one time—linger on the vampire’s lips for just a moment before meeting his red ones.

A thrill rocks Armin’s chest and tingles at his fingertips, and he doesn’t look away.

His heart thrumming in his ears still, the butterflies in his stomach are performing their best and most intricate acrobatic routine; they’ve been practicing for a while now, since the day Erwin had stepped into his domain, and they’ve finally gotten it _just_ right. He’s not sure how those butterflies aren’t dead yet, given how hard and how constantly they’ve been working, and it’s almost poetic that the night that they deserve their encore is the night he and his hunter are sitting in his kitchen in the middle of the night, a bowl of pomegranate seeds sitting beside them while they stare. No words, no laughter, no smiles. Just a pregnant pause while Erwin’s thumbs are still stroking Armin’s thighs and Armin’s fingers are still tangled in Erwin’s hair, noses nearly touching, hair standing up on end.

Armin’s in love with a vampire hunter.

“So how was that?” Erwin asks after a quick clear of his throat and a breath to steady himself. He grins, a little white glisten of teeth, but he doesn’t pull back. “I doubt it can compare to the real deal, but I wanted to help somehow.”

“Perfect,” Armin breathes, fingers falling loosely from Erwin’s hair and back down to his shoulders. He’s not really sure how they always end up at either of those two places but they seem to suit his hands well.

“Perfect?” Erwin asks when Armin doesn’t elaborate, grin widening a bit. A flush rises to Armin’s cheeks and he averts his gaze, staring down at the linoleum floor, hoping maybe he can burn some holes with the sheer power of determination and will. It doesn’t happen.

“I mean—It was good. Yeah. Thank you.”

“Eren, don’t go into the kitchen! They’re making out over a bowl of fruit! And it’s messy and gross.”

Levi’s voice makes them both jump, hands ripping away from each other like they’d been caught in the act. There’s laughter from outside of the kitchen, likely somewhere near the entryway (Armin identifies it as Eren’s), and footsteps fading away from them. Armin sees Erwin stiffen a little beside him, like maybe he’s afraid he’s going to get reprimanded or another _talk_ , but neither of his guests approach the kitchen.

“I love them to death,” Armin mumbles, a little smile tugging at the corner of his lips. He leans over onto Erwin’s shoulder a little bit, silently thanking God that he hadn’t moved his stool away yet. “But I kind of can’t wait until they leave.”

Erwin laughs, and Armin decides that’s the sound he’d like to listen to for eternity.

 

_+_

 

 “You’d never heard of ferals before Armin told you about them, had you?” Levi asks one evening, just as they’re all waking up. Per usual, Erwin had woken a solid hour before Armin and had taken his usual chair on the balcony. He hasn’t bothered to retrieve a book yet, and likely won’t until Armin awakes. “What else haven’t you known about?”

Erwin considers the question for a moment before giving a short shrug.

“Mostly just basic vampire biology, I guess,” he replies, and Levi perches on the rail of the balcony. This is one of the first times Erwin’s really seen him without Eren and peaceful at the same time. He bets he can blame it on the fact that he’s just woken up and hasn’t worked up to his standard hostility quite yet. “Like how you guys can’t eat food. And I’d always thought you needed blood to live.”

“Vampires that aren’t raised are exactly what you’re taught about. And, obviously, those are ferals. Did you know that even we vampires hunt ferals?”

Erwin’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline and his eyes dart over to Levi (he notes that the vampire seems to have a little more color in his complexion now than he had the last time Erwin had seen him).

“Didn’t think so,” Levi muttered, rolling his eyes.  “You humans seriously are walking disasters. Ticking fucking time bombs. Your petty little government put together a system for you guys—I’m sure you know the story.”

“Yeah. For centuries, we’ve been trained to fight and kill vampires. We’re not exactly government-affiliated, but they do fund us.”

“Whole lot of good that did for you, huh?” Levi smiled a mirthless smile and Erwin had to suppress a shiver. “Look at you, thinking you’re doing such good for humanity. Killing vampires when you have no idea how they work, or what to look for to target dangerous ones. You take hits like fucking murderers, just ordinary assassins. The chances of you killing actual ferals is close to none, considering we kill all of the bastards for you.”

“Is there no way to save a feral?”

“Nah, they’re long gone after a certain point, and it’s impossible to tell if you’re soon enough or not—vampires don’t age, pretty plain and simple. It’s like with feral humans. After about the age of five, there’s no culturing them. Forget everything you learned from Tarzan and George of the Jungle, because that’s bullshit.”

Absently, he thinks Levi talks quite a lot for someone who seems so cranky all of the time.

“I’ve raised plenty of vampires,” Levi says after a pregnant pause, finally turning his eyes over to the hunter. His lips twist into a scowl and he visibly fought off emotions. “I’ve had to watch vampires I’ve raised die because of hunters who were ignorant to reality. That’s why, even though Armin keeps his own barriers up fairly regularly, I always have one just around the outside of his turf too. I can’t risk losing another one. Meaningless deaths make me sick.”

Erwin’s gut drops. He remembers the friends Armin had mentioned; the ones that had been killed by hunters. How the hunters had long been killed for their wrongdoings.

“Armin’s one of them that I’ve raised,” Levi states when Erwin doesn’t ask any questions. “Purely by chance, though. Another vampire dumped him on my turf, hardly breathing with hardly enough vampire blood in him to keep him going. So I was kind of stuck with him, but I can’t really complain. He’s not a bad kid.”

“You did a good job of raising him, at least,” Erwin says softly, fighting so hard to bite back a comment about Levi’s motherly actions.

“Okay, calm down, Noah Calhoun, don’t go all glittering Gosling on me,” Levi says with a snort, shaking his head. “That boy you’re head over heels for in there was that way from the beginning. I didn’t change him, you know. He’s always been too independent for me to affect him much, anyway. So don’t start saying mushy shit.”

Erwin chuckles, and silence falls between the two of them. The woods are peaceful, fawns grazing on soft grass near the edge of the clearing. There’s little to no other movement, though, signaling a fairly relaxed night.

“There’s something else about vampires I doubt you know,” Levi says, though his voice has dropped down to a whisper. “We mate for life, and there are very few exceptions. And it doesn’t matter if the other party is female or male, human or vampire. It’s not strictly for or because of sex, of course. It’s just a fancy way of saying that a vampire’s fallen in love, and when vampires fall in love, it’s forever. And it’s easy to tell when a vampire’s fallen in love.”

Levi gives Erwin a quick look before he’s hopping down from the rail and leaning up against the door frame of the balcony. The question on the tip of Erwin’s tongue dies (or maybe he smothers it, himself), and the two fall silent.  Neither of them say a word or move a muscle until Armin stumbles out onto the balcony to complain about missing watching the tail end of the sunset, hair a disaster, eyes bleary and swollen from sleep.

 

_+_

 

Erwin decides that rounds around the mansion aren’t very fun, at least not when he’s by himself and would much rather be asleep.

He’s been with Armin for a little over a month. He’s completely adjusted to the boy’s sleep schedule, though he’s glad to see it’s not uncommon. Eren sleeps during the day with the rest of them as well, though he’s very much human.

The hunter’s left blinded every time he steps out of the front door and onto the porch, despite the shade that the rickety wooden awning offers him. It could be worse, and a lot more like home, back in California, where everything is paved and white and sandy and blinding in the right sunlight. Today is a little cloudier than most of the days that he’s spent patrolling his vampire’s territory and he soaks it in as he paces his way down the porch steps and off into the woods. His eyes adjust easier than they have been and he thinks maybe luck is on his side.

Except it’s obviously not.

He trips over boulders that he doesn’t remember being there (it’s only been a little over a week that he’s been taking this route, but he usually does two or three circles every day so he thinks that maybe he has an excuse to have it memorized; then again, he blames it on his lack of rest). His foot snags on a vine that almost sends him falling to the ground, but he catches himself on the trunk of a tree. When he looks down at it, he thinks that maybe it looks like someone’s haphazardly draped it where it lays.

The more attention he pays, though, the more Erwin sobers and takes in his surroundings.

There are no footsteps or tracks in the soil, but it all appears freshly turned. There are no birds singing today, no small creatures skittering around in the bushes and tree branches. The trees are too still to be natural, to be comfortable.

Erwin’s mind is finally alert, finally completely awake and to attention. He’s cautious throughout the rest of his round around the mansion, weaving out of the trees here and there to send an observatory glance towards the house he could almost easily call home now. Nothing’s quite out of place, not that he can see, but he still continues until his round is over. Only when he’s sure the morning’s search is fruitless does he return to the porch and open the door, shrugging his discomfort away.

The hunter’s known from the very beginning that the day would come that another hunter would come searching for him. A hunt can easily take up to a month without contact when a partner isn’t present, and once that time limit is reached, they’re usually searched for. He’d hoped for it in the beginning, hoped that he could hate the vampire up until the point where he could fight for his freedom.

He can’t leave anymore.

Nothing’s amiss in the entryway. Erwin shrugs his jacket off and hangs it on the coat rack, sparing a quick, cursory glance around the room. As he starts up the stairs, he ruminates sneaking into Armin’s room to put away the books he’s borrowed and exchange them for new ones before he retreats to his bed. He’s figured out which floorboards in the attic creak and he’s taken to avoiding them to let Armin sleep.

His thoughts are interrupted by the muffled sound of glass breaking and a loud slam onto hardwood floor from above. He’s running before he knows it, his train of thought lost and Armin’s name at the tip of his tongue.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i HATE LEAVING OFF ON CLIFFHANGERS I'M SORRY


	5. five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn’t stop to rub his eyes, instead focusing on the man in his attic. He’s definitely not Erwin—In fact, he’s a little taller than Erwin, hair a little longer—and he holds a sleek blade in one hand, a rosary in the other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so this update brings  
> 1) the shittiest chapter sorry about that  
> 2) also an intermission!! 
> 
> after these two updates, there's only one chapter left aaaayyyy [rolls]

Armin’s woken from his light doze by the sound of the attic door opening, a set of footsteps, and the door closing again. He doesn’t move at first, face nuzzled far-too-comfortably into one of his many favorite pillows he has stacked on top of his couch-bed, but he listens to the sound of the footsteps slowly approaching, somewhat cautious.

 _He’s trying not to wake me up again,_ Armin thinks sleepily, unable to stop the smile on his lips as he resists burying his face further into the fluff of his pillow. _I wonder when he’ll realize it’s basically useless, though. I told him I’m a light sleeper._

The footsteps stop short of his couch-bed, still quiet, still wary. It’s interesting that Erwin would stop near his bed, he thinks, because he’s never really done that before. He’s stopped halfway to where the bookshelves begin before, probably to send a quick little glance in the direction of the supposedly slumbering vampire, but he’s never come so close. He can’t seem to put two with two, though, in his groggy state, and contemplates just shifting a little to get more comfortable and falling back to sleep. The possibility that his hunter has come to give him some news on his rounds, though, flitters in the back of his mind, but he doesn’t plan to make it priority until Erwin himself wakes him up.

Erwin doesn’t wake him up, though. He stands there beside the bed, a soft shuffle of clothing after a moment or two. Subtly, Armin slowly stretches out his legs and rolls over onto his other side, facing the direction in which the Hunter’s standing. He cracks his eyes open sleepily , taking in what he can with slowly-focusing eyes.

What he sees is an unfamiliar posture, unfamiliar clothing with unfamiliar colors, a glint of something silvery—

His eyes shoot open so quickly that he feels dizzy and he forces his body up into a sitting position. It’s something of a feat, and the body beside his bed tenses, poises itself.

“Erwin?” he tries, voice hoarse from sleep.

He doesn’t stop to rub his eyes, instead focusing on the man in his attic. He’s definitely not Erwin—In fact, he’s a little taller than Erwin, hair a little longer—and he holds a sleek blade in one hand, a rosary in the other. He has a scruff on his chin, cheeks and jaw, and Armin can’t quite get a good look at his eyes in the dark of the room. The man’s dressed much like Erwin was when he’d first shown up—a bit ragged, casual and simple clothes with a heavy jacket. He’s still, standing just two or three feet away from where Armin sits, watching, and likely waiting for Armin to attack or scream or try to run. 

It takes only two seconds for the full reality to sink in, dread filling the boy’s chest. His body moves on adrenaline-fueled autopilot and he’s swinging his legs towards the opposite side of the bed, ready to put up a chase, but a hand is slapped over his mouth—beads, he can feel burning beads—and he’s pushed down onto his back. His hips are forced at an uncomfortable angle, the heavy, merciless weight of a heavy limb holding his legs down, the hunter’s other hand finding his wrists and holding them tightly above his head along with his blade. Armin can feel it digging down into his skin, already cutting from the sharpness of it.

“Don’t make a sound,” the rough voice of the hunter hisses, but Armin can feel the scream bubbling up from his throat. The beads of the rosary burn into his skin, into his lips; it hurts worse than he’d ever imagined. He clenches his fists, nails digging into the palms of his hands like it might distract him from the burning. “I’ll kill you, monster.”

A helpless whine is all that Armin dares muster. Even then, though, he feels the fear ripple through his body like some sort electric current.

 _I wasn’t prepared this time,_ Armin thinks as tears burn his eyes. He clamps his eyes shut as if it’ll prevent him from showing what he considers to be his weakness. _I just sat back and let them do all of the work and I did nothing. If I hadn’t just—If maybe I had done something, this wouldn’t—_

“You’re going to let him go.”

The hand slowly lifts off of Armin’s mouth and he gasps for air, lungs shuddering as the coolness of his room stings the burns on his skin. The tears flow harder, now, and it takes all of his control to breath steadily, to not cry out in pain like he so wants to. Without the rosary on him, he feels less bound, but there’s still a strong hand holding his own down, a blade nicking at his skin.

“You’re going to let Erwin go,” the man clarifies, tone commanding, expression unpleasant. “Without putting up a fight. I will kill you.” 

Armin sucks in a shaky breath and forces his focus on the man holding him to the bed.

“He can go as he pleases,” he says tersely, feigning stability with his words. It comes out stronger than even he expects, and the hunter’s eyebrow twitches. “I won’t make him stay any longer.”

The hunter’s grip slackens just a moment, just for a fraction of a second, and Armin thrusts his wrists forward, knocking the larger man off of his balance. He hisses under his breath, the knife in the man’s hands subsequently cutting deeper into his wrists, but as the hunter struggles for his balance, Armin uses his weight and momentum against him, swinging his legs the moment the slightest bit of pressure is lifted off of them. He doesn’t watch as the man falls hard to the ground, scrambling up from the bed and towards the door, but an ankle catches his own and sweeps his feet from below him.

The vampire lands hard, ribs slamming into his night stand. His portable heater and lamp topple to the ground, glass shattering and tinkling to the floor as Armin falls to his knees, heaving rough breaths as his chest rattles and his hands shake.

He silently wills his legs to move, to lift him off of the ground and run him down the stairs, but he can’t. He struggles up off of the ground once only to slump back down, and it takes all of his willpower to fall away from the night stand. The blonde grits his teeth, gripping at the edge of the mattress of his bed-couch, regret and pain and anger coursing through his veins as his blood (it’s still warm, technically it’s Erwin’s) spills out onto the floor and his sheets, seeps into his clothes. The burns on his face still sting, but they seem minimal now, sharp pains shooting through his ribs and down his spine with every breath.

Eyes unfocused, he watches as the hunter lifts up off of the ground and stalks towards him, knife lost and forgotten on the floor. Absently, he thinks he can hear a shout downstairs, but there’s a hand relentlessly gripping his hair and pulling.

Armin cries out, eyes shutting tight. Tears sting the corners of his eyes again and a pathetic noise forces its way up but dies in the back of his throat. Somewhere near his ear right, he can hear the soft clinking of beads even before they wrap around his neck and he knows he’s lost. He keeps his body as taught as he can, soothing some of the pressure on his scalp and adjusting his body as he can to ease the pain in his ribs, but there’s nothing he can do but let his shoulders sag when the burning on his neck reaches its peak.

“Let him go, Mike. Just put him down and step away.”

It’s Erwin’s voice, he knows.

He can’t recall the sound of the door opening or footsteps, but he can feel the hunter tense with the way his grips tighten (it’s quite inconvenient for Armin), so he assumes he’s not the only one surprised.

There’s a commanding lilt to Erwin’s voice that he’s never heard before. The voice of a leader, not a captive human, not a friend-or-whatever-he-is.

Whatever it is, it works. The reaction isn’t immediate, but the grip on his hair slowly loosens, the beads around his neck slacken and the vampire gasps with relief, even when he falls to the wooden floor with a noisy _thump_. His entire body burns and aches and stings and he’s colder than he can remember, but he grits his teeth and bears it, adjusting his position as well as he can for comfort on the hardwood floor. He shoves the rosary as far away from himself as he can, sacrificing the burns on his hands for the cause.

“Out of my fucking way,” he hears Levi hiss as he stomps into the room, less vigorous footsteps trailing behind him. Mike stumbles away when Levi shoves him, uttering a threatening growl that dares him to fight back, before he crouches down in front of the blonde. His fingers lightly brush Armin’s hair, and it’s an oddly welcome gesture. “You didn’t skimp, did you? _Wanted_ him to hurt, hm? Disgusting. Should cut your fuckin’ fingers off and have you gargle them.”

Eren places a gentle hand on Levi’s shoulder, likely to calm him, but the vampire shrugs it off, sits and carefully gathers Armin into his lap. With a scowl, he tugs the sheets off of Armin’s bed-couch before he rips them, rolling his eyes at the weak noise of protest Armin makes from the back of his throat.

“Oh shut up, you have more,” he murmurs as he carefully applies the tattered pieces of cloth to Armin’s wrists, forcing light pressure to the wounds. “Spoiled brat.”

“You need to leave,” Erwin says at last, eyes on the other hunter. His expression is hardened, guarded. His voice is still firm and filled with authority. He doesn’t waver in the slightest under Mike’s returned gaze. “Go back to your hotel or wherever you’re staying. Come back tomorrow night after sunset, but don’t come in past the gates. We’ll talk then.”

Mike opens his mouth to argue, but only for a moment. He watches Erwin for a long minute—Armin feels light fingertips run over his burns and he flinches, earning a soft apology from the vampire practically coddling him like an injured kitten—before he steps around the other hunter and stomps down the stairs. There’s no affirmative, and his knife and rosary are left lying unattended on the floor, but Erwin says nothing. He waits until the footsteps are gone before he steps his way over to the other three, glass crunching under his boots.

There’s a pregnant silence as Erwin crouches down next to Armin and Levi (Eren’s taken to gathering the rosary and the knife before disappearing down the stairs, likely to retrieve a broom to gather up the glass). He stays like that for a moment, unsure of what to do with himself or what to focus on.

“You should talk like that more often,” Armin says, though it’s more of a croak and it burns to speak. He thinks that now he sounds a little closer to his actual age—quite dead. “All firm ‘n commanding. Right suits you.” 

Levi snorts and a smile forms at Erwin’s lips.

While Armin does appreciate the tone Erwin had used with Mike, he prefers warm, soft smiles to scowls and frowns.

“You need to feed.” Levi gently props Armin up against the couch-bed, allowing him to adjust himself as adequately as he’s able. “You’ll heal quickly if you do. It’ll make things a lot easier for you in the end. Don’t be stubborn.”

“I have an idea,” Erwin says suddenly, standing. He steps around the two of them before sitting down on the edge of the couch bed, leaning back into the pillows. He holds his hands out towards Armin. “Bring him here. It’ll be easier for him to get comfortable this way.”

Levi narrows his eyes at Erwin for just a moment.

“Yeah, I’m sure you two will get all nice and comfy,” he mutters, but he gathers Armin into his arms—Armin knows more than thinks that Levi is being extra careful—before placing him into Erwin’s lap, between his arms. Armin slumps a little bit against Erwin’s chest, melting into his warmth as his eyes slide shut. He sighs, relieved, and Levi chuckles. “Don’t have too much fun. Poor kid just had the shit beat out of him, y’know.”

Armin giggles and opens his eyes just long enough to watch as Levi catches Eren at the door of the attic, broom in hand, before guiding him back down the stairs. The door shuts behind them and the room falls silent, Armin’s head dropping against Erwin’s shoulder.

“Speaking of which, you do have interesting company,” Armin says, nuzzling into Erwin’s neck. He can’t help himself much, allured by the scent of the hunter’s blood(he knew he’d become reliant if he got used to it—he knew it). “I mean, it was a pretty good first impression.”

“I’d say that he’s not normally like that, but around vampires . . . Yeah, he is. Very much just like that.”

“I should hope he’s not like that around humans.”

“ . . . You know, I can’t really tell you for sure.”

Armin laughs, a breathy, sort of dead-sounding noise, and by now he has his nose buried against Erwin’s neck, lips brushing across the skin where he’s bitten twice before. Erwin shivers against him, his breath likely less warm than usual, huffing against his skin with every soft exhale.

“You can go ahead, you know,” Erwin says softly, an arm winding around Armin’s waist to keep him steady. The boy shifts against him (almost self-indulgently) to settle himself. “No real point in stalling.”

The feeding process isn’t glamorous this time. Armin’s fingers shake as he fiddles with the collar of Erwin’s shirt, but the gentle pressure of Erwin’s hand cautiously rubbing his lower back keeps him grounded. The vampire’s breathing is labored when he finishes, propped up against Erwin’s chest still. He makes a face as he peels the tattered, bloody strips of sheet off of his wrists (the wounds there are almost completely healed by then, along with the burns on his skin from the rosary) and tosses them haphazardly to the floor. The ache in his side fades slowly as he rests against his hunter, replaced with soft warmth.

“Thank you,” he says softly, smiling up at Erwin. His voice sounds better, a little more normal. “That was impressive earlier, you know. Stopped him without even touching him.”

Erwin is silent for a moment, eyes a little glazed until he forces himself to attention. He smiles, though, ruffling Armin’s hair.

“I remember you doing something similar when we first met, yeah?” His smile widens before it fades entirely and Armin thinks it’s a great loss. He almost wants to reach up and touch Erwin’s face, see if he could coax that smile out of him again, but he’s speaking again. “You stopped me before I even started.”

“I don’t think it’s even fair to compare,” Armin insists, reaching up to lightly bump Erwin’s nose with his fingertip. “Because, I mean, neither of us exactly had the greatest of intentions then.”

It takes a moment of consideration, but Erwin’s smile is back. Armin’s heart stutters for a moment, like a disorienting palpitation.

“And we’re both safe now,” the vampire continues, once again resting his head on Erwin’s shoulder. He’s made no move whatsoever to widen the distance between the two of them, but Erwin doesn’t seem to mind. He winds his arms around Armin in return, hold loose but still keeping them close together (it seems that’s just the way Erwin does things—he takes action for the things he wants to do, but always leaves enough leeway for Armin to pull away or bring it to an end, though he never does). “And it’s thanks to you, so I think we both deserve a celebratory nap.”

Erwin chuckles, watches Armin lean over to switch the heater on (a naptime ritual), tugs the blankets over the two of them. He says, “Fair enough. Hard to say no when you’ve basically decided for me.”

Armin shoots a triumphant little grin up at him before he nuzzles his way into the pillows at Erwin’s side. He tugs the man down with him, easing him down onto the pillows onto his side, facing the vampire. He throws a small arm over Erwin’s side and pulls himself close, Erwin’s arms re-winding themselves around him.

He wants to be held close to Erwin like this. It keeps him grounded.

 _I don’t want you to leave me,_ Armin thinks, pressing himself to Erwin’s chest. Silence fills his library, all save for Erwin’s steady breathing, slower every minute that Armin lays there. It does nothing to prevent the heavy, corrosive feeling that sinks down to the pit of Armin’s stomach. He knows Erwin has friends back home, has family. He has this job (though Armin is unsure of whether or not he’ll continue it), he has a chance to live for himself, choose for himself. He’s strong and willful, and he’s seen Armin at his most vulnerable already. He could leave any moment, and Armin would be stupid to resist. _Please don’t leave me. Please—I need you here. I don’t know what I’ll do without you. Please. Please, don’t leave—_

“You can leave tomorrow—with that hunter—if you’d like.”

Armin waits a solid four minutes (he counts) for a response. Every second that ticks by sets a new flavor of reluctance and dread in his stomach, leaves a bitter, acidic flavor in the back of his mouth.

He doesn’t look up until he hears a soft snore from just above him. Erwin’s eyes are shut, his features more relaxed than Armin has ever seen them. His body is slack, vulnerable, lips parted just slightly as he breathes steadily—

He’s asleep.

The vampire breathes a soft, mirthless laugh before burying his face into Erwin’s chest. The man shifts a little against him. Armin thinks he’s a lot like a rock when he sleeps.

_I hate you so much. And you left your damn boots on in my bed._

A sob wells up from his chest and spills out without his consent. He bites down onto his lower lip, clenching his eyes shut as if it would keep the tears in, but it does no good. They spill out, more or less diagonally, down his face, trickling off of his nose and wetting Erwin’s shirt. He inhales deeply, stabilizing himself, but he doesn’t think he can do it. Shakily, his fingers grip Erwin’s shirt, and after one more quick peek up to the man to prove to himself that he’s not waking up, he allows himself to slump bonelessly against him.

He’ll tell him again when they woke up, he decides.

Erwin will leave, he knows; there’s no doubt about it anymore.

 

+

 

Armin puts it off up until just a few hours before Mike is supposed to arrive at the gates. Even when he does tell Erwin, he attempts to beat around the bush for a few short moments, to which he receives one arched eyebrow and he catches the tail end of an eye-roll from Levi. They’re all in the attic; Levi’s pacing (it’s a habit), Eren lounges in the old bean bag with a book and Erwin’s sitting next to him on the couch-bed. He thought that maybe it’d be easier to say it when he had Eren and Levi to urge him on, but Eren has yet to pay their conversation any attention, and all he’s gotten so far from Levi has been pure, unadulterated _snark_.

He heaves a lengthy sigh and peers up at the hunter.

“You can leave tonight, you know,” he says softly. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious at this point I won’t be able to stop you. I could sic Levi on you if you tried to leave, but I don’t think he’d appreciate being treated like a dog.”

 _That_ catches Eren’s attention and he barks out a laugh, eyes still trained on the book in his hands. The older vampire shoots a glare comparable to death at the brunette, but it goes entirely unnoticed.

“I don’t want to re-live last time,” Levi mutters, only stopping his pacing to narrow his eyes at Erwin, like he’s re-living their entire past experience all in one moment. “And no. I would _not_ appreciate being treated like a dog.”

“There you have it.”

Erwin gives him an odd look, one he can’t place, one that makes him reconsider everything he’s said. He hasn’t said anything truly out of the ordinary, at least he doesn’t think so, but the look still confuses him. Maybe he’s not as good at reading people as he’d previously thought.

Armin can’t shake the feeling that look gives him.

“Well, the most I’ll do is leave for about a week when Mike gets here to kind of sort things out back home,” Erwin says after a moment, eyes flickering over to Levi as if he’s waiting for some sort of approval. The vampire says nothing, only turning on his heel to make another lap around the attic (Armin thinks he’s trying to burn a hole in his floor). He turns his attention back to Armin immediately. “There are a few things to take care of if you still want me to stick around here.”

Armin can feel a strange numbness creeping into his chest as he watches Erwin’s eyes, examines them for a lie or an exaggeration. He’s too intelligent to play around with a subject like this—that much Armin knows. But Erwin is too intelligent for many things.

“I know you want to go home.” Armin’s voice is but a whisper now, and he tears his gaze away from Erwin’s eyes and forces it down to the hands in his lap. “I’m not going to keep you here against your will anymore. I have no right to. And you shouldn’t feel obligated to stay, either. Once you get back home, you won’t want to come back.”

“I doubt that’s the case. I will go back, but just long enough to take care of things, and then I’ll be back here.”

Erwin’s voice is too gentle, far too comforting for Armin to truly appreciate. He either understands too much or not enough. There’s no getting over it, though—once Armin has made up his mind, it’s a challenge to sway him. And right now, it’s a challenge he’s not willing to let Erwin step up to.

“I suppose we’ll see, then,” the vampire says softly, reaching for the book sitting next to him. He flips open to the page he’d last been on and finds his place with ease, eyes avoiding Erwin altogether. “It’s almost dinner time. It’d probably be a pretty good idea for you and Eren to find something to eat.”

 

_+_

 

Erwin leaves with Mike, as Armin had predicted. Armin stays at the door long enough to see Erwin gaze back at him, smile something a lot like a reassuring smile, and give him the small wave that lets the vampire know Erwin’s going to be leaving.

He shuts the door as soon as Erwin’s back is to him.

Armin stares at the door handle for a long, eternal minute before he lets his hand slip away and fall to his side. The ideas of Erwin never coming back, never seeing him again, growing old and dying before Armin can find him again spring to his mind and his stomach lurches so violently that he flinches. There are two pairs of eyes on him, though. He will not cry. He will never cry over Erwin Smith again.


	6. six (intermission)

Going back home is one of the single most hellish ideas Erwin has ever had in his life.

He could’ve outright avoided his mother, but it wouldn’t have been very smart. If she’d found out that he had been home but not contacted her, she very well may have destroyed the entire continent searching for him.

She rips him a shiny new one the moment he steps into his apartment and finds her waiting for him (the last thing he wants after a long flight is to be lectured by his mother, but there’s no avoiding it and there’s obviously no going back now). Mike’s present for the entire fiasco, arms crossed over his shoulder, eyes defiantly stabled _elsewhere_ , leaning up against the wall as if he were a permanent fixture to Erwin’s apartment. Every time Erwin’s eyes find him, pleading for a little bit of assistance with his yelling mother, the younger hunter simply rolls his eyes and looks away.

Erwin thinks absently that his mother far too calm of a person to be yelling at him the way she is. She’s kept most of her complexion clear of wrinkles up until this point, sixty and almost flawless-skinned, but now all of her hidden flaws are glaringly obvious. Her acutely plucked eyebrows are furrowed angrily, eyes narrows, mouth moving at three hundred miles per minute and Erwin’s heard all of about three sentences since it’s begun.

“You _better_ make sure you call me next time! I don’t care how much of a grown man you think you are, you are _going_ to call in and check up with your mother every once in a while!” she hisses, her usually soft, warm voice now icy and filled to the brim with rage. “Why are you even doing this, anyway? Your father was a hunter, but that doesn’t mean you have to be! If it puts you in such danger, why are you bothering—“

“Ma’am,” Mike finally interrupts, tone tired and maybe even a little annoyed. His annoyance isn’t at Erwin’s mother, or at least he doesn’t think so. She shoots the tall man a sharp glare that makes him stiffen up, stand a little straighter and up off of the wall per reflex. “With all due respect, of course. I don’t think he wants to be a hunter anymore.”

Erwin can feel his mother’s eyes burning into him, even as he glares at Mike.

“And why is that?” she asks carefully, slowly, cautiously. It’s like she’s calculating his demise, even though just seconds before she’d been almost convincing him to quit. “What happened while you were gone?”

“He met a vampire.”

Irritation bubbles up to Erwin’s very core and he considers, very heavily, hitting Mike like he’d almost done back in the mansion to protect Armin. It wouldn’t be too much of a challenge, getting a clean shot right to his jaw or his nose.

“A male vampire. And he fell in love.”

“Mike,” he more or less hisses out. “Thank you. I can speak for myself. You can _leave_ now. You’re not needed here.”

Mike gives him a cursory little shrug, pointing his gaze to the ceiling. Erwin’s mother has gone silent for quite possibly the longest period of time since he’s stepped foot into the apartment. While he knows this conversation is necessary—he could never lie to his mother—he hadn’t really planned on having it quite yet. He could’ve bullshit something until he had the opportune moment to tell her everything, with maybe Armin’s help. But now he sits on his couch (a lumpy one someone had given him as a gift when he’d first moved in) while his mother stands stock still in front of him. And he is mortified.

Erwin slips his eyes shut and rubs the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. If he listened very closely, he could probably hear the soft sound of all of the questions burning holes in his mother’s mind.

Only at the sound of movement does he open his eyes. He watches as his mother paces for a few moments, eyes on the floor, before slumping weightlessly into the loveseat adjacent from his couch. She sinks down in the cushions (either because they had always been a little . . . _Slumpy_ , or because she’d given up on everything altogether), a long, drawn-out sign heaving from her chest.

“A _vampire_?” she asks, her age showing in her words. She stares at her son tiredly, eyelids drooping a little. “Of all things, I thought I raised you better.”

“ . . . I’m a little confused.”

“Why?”

“You’re worried about the _vampire_ part of the whole ordeal?”

“Oh, sweetheart. I’m not surprised it’s a man.”

He hears Mike snort from the other side of the room—the unhelpful bastard is still there—and he groans, dropping his head into his hands. This isn’t the conversation he wants to be having, let alone any variation of it, but there’s no point in lying or keeping anything from his mother anymore. 

“Well, obviously I can voice my disapproval,” his mother starts, slow and thoughtfully, every word pronounced just so perfectly, demanding his attention. “But, your grandmother heavily disapproved of me marrying a hunter, and what did I do? Elope with one.”

She sits for a moment, eyes bearing down hard on Erwin as she thinks, considers and contemplates. Erwin knows he can’t get his hopes up with his mother; she’s always been excellent at keeping him on his toes, changing the mood of the conversation with one change of tone or one vital word. She’s also always been very insightful, though, and empathetic. She couldn’t harness the cold, heartlessness that seemed so stereotypical for mothers and wives of hunters.

She stands very suddenly and waves Erwin up off of the couch. She tugs him around the coffee table with a loose grip on his wrist before pulling him into a firm hug.

“And, unfortunately, you’ve always been like me.” She rubs small circles into his back, smiling a little fondly. “I can’t tell you not to go, because I know you’re going to. You’re a grown man. And let’s be honest, you’ll likely be safer being with a vampire than hunting them.”

Erwin cracks a small smile and his mother beams up at him.

“The only condition is that you have to let me meet him one day!”

Mike snorts again— _why is he still here? For a best friend, he’s honestly helping nobody here_ —and Erwin chuckles. He presses a soft little kiss to his mother’s forehead and she grins.

“You’ll like him,” Erwin says quietly, absently adjusting his shirt when his mother finally pulls back. She reaches up to push his bangs to the side, away from where they’ve fallen into his eyes. “He’s quiet around new people, and he loves books, honeysuckles and fluffy sweaters that dwarf him in size. And pomegranates, even though he can’t eat them.”

His mother gives him an odd look, one that he tilts his head to in a silent question. She offers no explanation, save for a wink and a smile.

“Well, we have work to do, don’t we? There are things we need to settle.”  


	7. seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You sure took your sweet ass time,” he says, voice lacking any real venom. “You honestly had me and Eren worried.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sO there's still smut in this chapter but it's not actual SEX so gomen about that. but not gomen about that because??? yeah. 
> 
> anyway, this is iiiiiiit. thanks for sticking around and reading and commenting and the kudos and all that good stuff, you guys have been wonderful to me <3 
> 
> [whispers] ereri spin-off all in favor say aye

It takes a week and a half, but Erwin returns to the iron gates of Armin’s mansion, a little past two in the morning. He adjusts the strap of the bag (it’s a duffle bag this time, not the burlap messenger bag he’d started with—he’s pretty sure Armin still has that one) slung over his shoulder and watches the curtains hanging in the attic windows for movement.

Of all things he’d never expected to be easy, withdrawing himself from the small community of hunters he’d been attached to had been on the very top of the list.

He’d been damn right.

Though his mother and Mike had offered to step in (Mike a little more reluctant to do so than his mother; he still intended on staying with the community and had no intentions of just risking his own reputation, and at least he had dragged Erwin back home), he’d managed entirely on his own. The board had been hesitant and even fairly skeptic, but his request for an ‘undeterminable amount of time off’ for his ‘staggering need for a period of self-discovery after being held captive by a vampire’ had been approved and he’d been dismissed from the practice with no real confirmation of being allowed to return. It sounded ridiculous, and Mike had agreed, but it had worked and they hadn’t asked too many questions. Feigning PTSD worked well enough.  

Erwin makes it to the front door, up the creaking steps of the porch, with Armin’s face in his mind. It had been disorienting, going from seeing the boy every day for an entire month to not seeing him for nearly two weeks.

He’s missed him more than he’d ever be truly ready to admit.

The ex-hunter opens the front door without knocking. He closes it gently, shrugging the bag off of his shoulder and placing it next to Armin’s large, comfy chair in the corner behind the table. When he turns towards the stairs, Levi’s standing by the rail with his arms crossed over his chest and his expression as blank as ever.

“You sure took your sweet ass time,” he says, voice lacking any real venom. “You honestly had me and Eren worried.”

“And what about Armin?”

“Oh, he’s been convinced you wouldn’t come back from the very beginning. I’d blame you, simply because I kind of want to, but it’s honestly not just your fault. He’s stubborn and doubts everything.”

A grimace tugs at Erwin’s lips and he runs a hand through his hair, eyes inspecting the room one bit at a time. Nothing has changed aside from the placement of some of the books on the shelves, maybe the table in front of the big comfy chair has moved a little, and maybe he can see new groceries on what little corner of the kitchen counter is visible from where he stands. It almost feels as if the entire place was left in the same state for him, but that seems a little conceited.

“Well, go talk to him now,” Levi says, eyes rolling. When Erwin nods and starts up the stairs, the vampire stops him with one hand on his shoulder. “He’s napping, but he’s a light sleeper. Oh. He’s gonna cry. I promise. Don’t be an insensitive prick and tell him to stop crying or he’ll just cry harder. Let him cry it out.”

He arches one brow at Levi, unsure of if he should take anything the vampire has just said as an insult or an actual attempt at being helpful. He nods though, saying, “Thank you,” before Levi gives him a thumbs up and shoos him up the stairs.

Erwin tries, probably uselessly, to make his trip up the stairs and down the halls as quiet as possible. His effort isn’t fruitless when he does finally make it to Armin’s library and sees that the boy is still (at least seemingly) fast asleep. His steps to the couch-bed are quiet, and the blonde vampire only so much as shifts when he sits onto the edge of the mattress.

Armin’s face is pale, always lightly framed by his soft blonde hair. On the bed beside him are stacks of books, stacks bigger than Erwin’s ever seen Armin have before. Here’s a half-opened book laying on his chest, a flimsy little hand-made embroidered book mark laying on the blankets near one of Armin’s hands. He’s twisted a little uncomfortably-looking, hips jutted at an awkward angle, pillows forcing his chest out more than natural, head turned in a way that almost makes Erwin wince a little for him. He doubts the boy can be resting comfortably.

The ex-hunter brushes his fingers over Armin’s cheek and only stops to frown at the coldness of his skin.

(Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows that he should’ve made Armin feed at least once again before he went back home to sort everything out. Levi had been saying something about the blood only helping to heal up his wounds and only heal his wounds, not keep him warm and satisfied like it normally would have.)

Armin hums sleepily, an innocent and soft noise from somewhere between his chest and throat. He shifts a little, leaning into the warmth of Erwin’s palm automatically, stretching himself out of the uncomfortable position.

His eyes flutter open and he smiles a little bit, shifting closer to Erwin. He traps the man, both arms wrapping around one of Erwin’s to greedily harvest what soft warmth he can get. His big red eyes are unfocused, concentrating on not one thing in particular. He stays that way, smiling and practically clinging to Erwin’s warmth, soaking in his warmth, but then he freezes before practically ripping himself away from the man. He lets out an odd, squealing noise as he topples back, teetering dangerously close to falling off of the edge of the couch-bed, but Erwin snakes an arm around his waist and tugs him back onto the bed to safety. The book that had been laying on Armin’s chest falls to the floor with a thump that makes both of them jump, and Erwin retrieves it to gingerly place it on the bed next to Armin.

“Erwin,” Armin breathes, eyes wide, chest heaving with shock. Out of the corner of his eye, Erwin sees Armin’s fingers twitch a little before he reaches out, cautiously touching Erwin’s shoulder. “Oh. Oh shit, you’re here.”

Erwin smiles, laying a hand over Armin’s.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

Armin stares at him for a long moment, eyes not wavering away from Erwin’s. It isn’t until his eyebrows draw upward, the corners of his mouths twitching, does he realize that Armin’s eyes are reddening, shinier in comparison than they were just a moment ago, and he remembers what Levi had said.

“For how long?” Armin asks, voice cracking halfway through. He pulls his hand away from Erwin, holding it to his chest with his other. The tears are welling up in his eyes at full speed, and Erwin doubts they have any intention to stop. “Are you going to leave again?”

“I’m not going to leave again, at least not until you throw me out,” Erwin replies, and he smiles a little. “I’m here for as long as you’ll have me, Armin.”

Erwin witnesses the exact moment that the damn breaks, tears flowing almost endlessly from the boy’s eyes, face not nearly as flushed as it could be, lips not nearly as red as they once were. In one quick movement, the vampire relocates himself to Erwin’s lap—which, really, seems to be the best place for him; he fits well and it lifts his height a few inches—with his arms looped around his neck and he pulls Erwin down to eye level. He only gives Erwin two seconds before he’s kissing him, hands cupping the ex-hunter’s cheeks and holding him in place. When he pulls back, he leaves Erwin reeling and gives him a stern look.

“Don’t do that again.”

“I told you I’d be back, but you didn’t believe me.”

“And don’t call me out on my bullshit.”

Erwin laughs quietly, reaching up with a thumb to brush Armin’s small, steady little stream of tears off of his cheeks, only for it to be replaced with more. The boy leans into his touch, more aware of what he’s doing this time than the last.

“Really, though,” Armin whispers, face hardly an inch away from Erwin’s. The tears seem to have slowed, but his eyes are still red, cheeks a little puffy and swollen. He stares up at Erwin a little miserably, looking a little conflicted. “I’m—I’m just really glad you came back.”

“You’re ridiculous if you seriously thought I wouldn’t come back.” Erwin grins, now, threading his fingers through Armin’s hair in a way he’s wanted to do for so long.

“Well I guess I’m ridiculous.”

Armin returns the grin, leaning into another kiss when Erwin initiates it this time.

Kissing Armin feels natural, like they’ve done it for lifetimes. Even though Armin’s claimed to have no experience, he’s a quick learner and kisses like it’s what he was born to do, with enthusiasm—he sucks and bites Erwin’s lower lip before their tongues meet and Erwin realizes that he’s picked up more than he thought—that leaves Erwin dizzy. He’s not lacking something for the first time in his life; he doesn’t feel like there’s anything left to be desired. He’s content to have Armin like this forever, and though he has no intentions of blocking anyone out of his life, he doesn’t truly rely on anyone else either.

“I love you,” Erwin says very suddenly when the kiss breaks, like it’s an abrupt realization when he knows it’s really not, like he might not have enough time to say it any other time. He’s always considered himself very good at controlling his tongue and thinking through what he’s going to say (Armin’s presence has heavily busted that myth), but now he feels like it’s been shot straight out of him with no return path and, clearly, no claiming a do-over. Armin’s eyes are massive, still-teary saucers, overtly surprised. Now, a little more confident in his words, “Maybe not the best time, but I love you.”

Armin stares at him like that with his huge eyes for just a moment longer before his eyes narrow into a glare.

“Oh, you bastard,” he mutters, but he doesn’t pull away or shift away in the slightest. In fact, his body relaxes, sinking in closer to Erwin like he relies on the physical contact to survive. “I swear to God, you have this big master plan, don’t you?”

It’s ironic that the one time he really doesn’t is the one time someone says that.

Worry makes him furrow his brows and his lips part, poised to dispel accusations, but Armin’s continuing, “Hitting me with everything all at once like I can handle it. Sure, you don’t see it right now, but I’m kind of freaking out.”

Erwin can feel it in the way Armin’s hands shake on his cheeks, the way his body shudders and shivers every other moment. The vampire is much like a little ball of energy, just barely contained by one of Erwin’s hands on his waist and the other still resting on his cheek.

Armin kisses him again, very suddenly and a lot like the way Erwin had made his confession, but his lips move slowly, fluidly against Erwin’s. He draws out the kiss longer than necessary, pulls himself closer than necessary, but Erwin finds absolutely nothing to complain about.

And then Armin’s kissing down to his jaw, down his neck, licking and sucking small patches on his way. He nips ever so slightly, gently and careful not to draw any blood, at least not yet, and his fingers tangle into Erwin’s hair. Erwin groans, low and from his chest, and tilts his head just slightly, granting his vampire a little more space.

“Can I?” Armin asks softly, nipping lightly at the juncture between Erwin’s neck and shoulder. The human shudders and nods once, following up with a quiet affirmative as confirmation. “I really have become dependent, you know.”

All Erwin can think is that he selfishly wants the dependency—even if that’s a little fucked up—as Armin sinks his fangs into his neck.

He’s either too eager for Armin to feed or he’s been slowly desensitized, but either way, Armin’s fangs hardly hurt as much as they had the first time. It’s more like a quick pinch, rather than two stabs. The little pain that does affect him is soothed by Armin’s tongue as it laps over his skin to pull loose blood into his mouth. The buzzed feeling is back and he realizes that he sort of missed it; he hadn’t been able to appreciate it to its fullest last time, when Armin had been wounded and healing.

It feels like there are sparks where Armin bites, where Armin touches. There are stars dancing vaguely across his vision when he opens his eyes, lids heavy. Warmth pools in the pit of his stomach, easily washing away any negative and unfortunate feeling he’s ever had, replacing it with a white-hot heat that makes his hair stand up on end. He feels like a user, like someone who’s gone too far long without their fix, regardless of how little the time past has been. He doesn’t ever want to _not_ feel like this.

Maybe he’s become dependent on Armin, too.

Armin hums a happy little noise when he pulls back, this time managing to only take enough to satisfy him and warm his body. He licks the remaining blood from Erwin’s neck, gently lapping until the bleeding stops. His fingers play with Erwin’s hair and Erwin gratefully accepts the touch, in no state to even consider resisting any physical contact from the blonde vampire.

“I love you too,” the boy finally whispers, pressing small kisses to the remaining and already healing fang marks on Erwin’s neck. “You’re incredible, you know.”

Armin’s flushed, likely from head to toe, when Erwin gets a good look at him. He fidgets, hips raised just above Erwin’s so that he’s no longer fully seated in the man’s lap. His fingers shake but they don’t stop teasing Erwin’s hair, like playing with it is second nature and an effortless action. When he speaks, his words are a little slurred and Erwin wonders if the feeding affects them both in the same ways.

When Armin sinks down into his lap fully, Erwin has a pretty good idea that it does.

At the slightest bit of contact, they both give a small jerk and gasp (Erwin can’t remember ever being so sensitive in his life; even the minimal touch drives him insane). Armin hisses softly and leans his forehead against Erwin’s neck, guiding his hips down against Erwin’s again and moaning. He can feel the vampire’s hardness through his own jeans and Armin’s sweat pants, and when he moves to pull back, Erwin’s hands find his ass and pull him right back down, earning him another strangled little moan and the whisper of, “Oh God.”

Erwin chuckles breathlessly, eyes shutting on their own when Armin kisses him again, slowly and languidly, pivoting his hips just so, in just the right way to draw moans out of them both. The kiss is all teeth and tongue and hot breath, Armin catching Erwin’s lip between his teeth again. Erwin grunts with approval, finally angling his own hips up to meet Armin’s. The boy gasps, fingers faltering just slightly in his hair.

He watches through half-open eyes as Armin rolls his neck at the same time he rolls his hips downward. The boy bites at his lower lip, already damp from their kisses, as his hair falls into his face and he leans down to the side of Erwin’s neck opposite of the one he’d already thoroughly attended.

Armin dips down, picks a spot, and sucks—gentle enough to feel pleasant and merciless enough to leave a glaring, bright red mark on Erwin’s neck.

Erwin’s hands wander to the vampire’s sides for better leverage, a mostly innocent touch to begin with. But as Armin takes control of his own motions and pushes his own hips down, Erwin finds his hands edging Armin’s shirt, fingertips lightly brushing the soft skin there. He feels goose bumps raise on the boy’s skin, soft and firm in all of the right places, and hears Armin’s voice catch in the back of his throat abruptly when he drags his nails across the curve of his hips.

The vampire puffs out an impatient little breath, no real annoyance on his face as he leans away from Erwin to tug his own shirt off and fling it somewhere on the other side of the bed. Erwin hardly catches the mischievous little grin at the boy’s lips as he grabs his hands and slides them further up his torso, urging him on silently.

He’s hesitant at first, but Erwin allows his hands to glide across Armin’s skin. Silently, he admires the silkiness of Armin’s skin, wonders if it’s just a vampire thing (there seems to be a lot of those, after all), before his hands are feeling their way up to Armin’s chest. He flicks one of Armin’s nipples with his thumb and watches the way the boy keens and arches his back into the touch, teeth teasing at his own lip and blush darkening substantially.

Armin’s so graceful and soft that Erwin would almost worry about actually _breaking_ him, watching the boy crumble in his own hands. Maybe if he didn’t know what he knew about him.

When Armin pulls his hips back up the next time, Erwin slides one hand away from his chest and slips it between Armin’s legs. Armin jerks at the more controlled touch one second and thrusts into it the next, fingers spasming violently in Erwin’s hair, whiney pleasured noises flowing freely from his mouth. The ex-hunter strokes him through his sweatpants generously, sparing no attention to anything that isn’t Armin, that isn’t Armin’s pleasure, that isn’t Armin’s sweet voice and the noises he makes.

Erwin decides then and there that he could give everything to Armin—mentally, emotionally or physically.

“Oh, _fuck_ , Erwin,” the boy practically mewls when he forces his mouth away from Erwin’s neck (he doesn’t doubt that it’s littered with little red marks, now, and he also doesn’t doubt the shit he’ll be catching for it the next time he sees Levi or Eren). Armin grinds down into his working hand, legs shaking and resolve visibly crumbling. “Feels good, feels really good.”

When his hand slows to a stop, predictably, Armin whines and opens his eyes to stare at him a little accusingly, a little disappointedly. But his hands hesitantly tug at the waistband of Armin’s sweatpants and the boy’s eyes widen with realization, pupils blown with obvious arousal and excitement, and he aides Erwin in shimmying them down his hips, just only as much as strictly necessary for the touch that Erwin’s offering him. Erwin guides him to sit between his thighs, Armin’s legs stretched but bet on either side of Erwin’s sides.

When Erwin finally wraps his hand around Armin’s waiting cock and gives him a few experimental strokes, a keen, loud moan seemingly rips itself from Armin’s throat and the boy throws his head back, blindly groping Erwin’s shoulders for purchase and support. He shudders, even as Erwin’s hand only strokes slowly, and Erwin watches as he grits his teeth and has to fight for coherency. His fingers dig into Erwin’s shoulder and the man doubts he even notices.

Though Erwin quite likes to see Armin overstimulated (though maybe a little overwhelmed, too, with small little tears gathering in his eyes again that Erwin can’t quite pinpoint—could be the pleasure, could be frustration), he slows his hand to a stop to give the vampire some time to collect himself.

Armin’s breathing is heavy and erratic, glazed-over eyes hardly even open as he watches Erwin. His lips are red and swollen and so are his eyes, face, neck and ears finely dusted with dark red, visible even in the slight light of the room.

Erwin really has to thank him for keeping candles lit at all times.

He wants to tell the boy he’s beautiful, that he’d be content seeing him in this state for the rest of his life, but Armin’s gathered his bearings and is reaching for his belt and his words die on his tongue. It takes work—and a little stubborn batting Erwin’s helping hand away—but Armin manages to ride him of his leather belt and unbutton his jeans to free him of his uncomfortably tight confinement.

“Armin,” he groans out when the vampire’s hand wraps around his length this time, and his own voice is so wrecked and ragged that he doesn’t even recognize it at first. “Hang on.”

Armin’s hand freezes and he stares up at Erwin, dread in his eyes. Erwin just smiles, though, and pulls the vampire closer by his hips, as close as they can get in the position they’re in. Their cocks brush and it’s a little bit like electricity, effectively stealing the breath out of both of their lungs’. Armin leans forward until his forehead touches Erwin’s shoulder and the ex-hunter rests his own head on top of Armin’s.

Erwin’s hands work by feeling alone—he finds the heads of their lengths with his thumb and liberally smears the pre-come where it’ll come in most handy. Armin whimpers with every move, legs jerking against Erwin’s sides when particularly sensitive spots of his skin are brushed by a fingertip or Erwin’s palm. They’re both so hypersensitive that it’s almost painful (Erwin’s fairly relieved that it’s not just him), but it would be even more painful to do nothing about it.

Erwin wraps one hand around their lengths, his other hand finding the back of Armin’s neck, and he strokes slowly, fluidly. He moans openly, though he fights the urge to suppress himself to hear the moans, the whines and the whimpers that Armin releases, hips jerking for more exposure to the feelings, to Erwin’s hand. They’re both so close that either of them could lose it at any moment.

“ _Please_ ,” Armin begs, fingers still digging into Erwin’s shoulders. He makes a choked sobbing noise, thrusting his hips uselessly one more time until Erwin relents and speeds up his pace. “Oh—oh fuck.”

Erwin tilts his head down and nips at Armin’s ear as he works their cocks together. He feeds off of the noises Armin makes, every little twitch of his body, every incoherent word that passes his lips. Every inch of his body screams for release but he holds off for as long as he’s physically able to, drinking in all of Armin while he still can (because there’s some pessimistic part of him that insists this won’t be happening again, but he pushes it to the back because he’s starting to sound like Armin had earlier).

Armin comes with a violent shudder and a shout of something very much like a mangled version of Erwin’s name. Erwin follows soon, moaning from the pleasure and releasing into his hand and Armin’s softening cock, vision whiting-out as he sees stars. The boy doesn’t complain, only makes some noncommittal guttural noise with no real name to it. He slumps against Erwin bonelessly while the man regains motor controls, breath heavy and eyes hardly even open.

He’s back to reality after a moment while Armin’s mind still appears to be dancing somewhere in Limbo, eyes dazed, a smile at his lips that fights to be both giddy and exhausted. He cleans them both up while Armin recovers, chest heaving, shoulders and back rocking with every inhale and exhale.

“I think I could go for a nap,” Armin says when he’s pulled his sweats back up and successfully tucked Erwin back into his pants, belt long lost and forgotten in the dim room. He grins a little dazedly up at Erwin, and there’s an odd little commotion in Erwin’s stomach at the mere sight. “Or a cigarette, but I don’t smoke and neither do you, so I guess a nap.”

“A nap seems like the best option for nearly situation, when it’s us,” Erwin says, a smirk toying at his lips. “I take it this is a celebratory nap, too?”

“Celebrating that one time in the middle of the night that we confessed our love to each other. I propose that this is a yearly tradition. All in favor say ‘aye’. Aye.”

“Aye.”

Armin snickers, lazily crawling off of Erwin to bury himself under the covers. He beckons Erwin over to join him, and the man does as instructed. “Two out of two. This has been a thrillingly unanimous vote. Quite a day in history.”

Armin makes sure that Erwin removes his boots this time (Erwin hadn’t been aware of the problem last time, but he does as he’s instructed regardless; he thinks he might be a little whipped already, so to speak). The moment Erwin lays down, Armin’s curling up next to him, hand finding Erwin’s and holding it captive close to his chest.

“Thank you for coming back.”

“Anytime.”

 

_+_

 

“You two are fucking disgusting. Like, I’d say get a room, but you’d never leave the fuckin’ attic. Come on, Eren, let’s leave this goddamn cheese fest.”

Eren raises a single brow and grins, hefting the duffle bag of belongings’ strap onto his shoulder. He shuffles out the door and onto the porch only to stop and turn to face the entranceway again. Armin watches on with amusement as the older, shorter, and much, much angrier little vampire shuffles out behind him, a scowl plastered to his face. 

The blondes replace their post at the doorframe, fingers intertwined (which is mostly Armin’s fault, he has to confess, and it’s mostly because Erwin’s hands are inhumanly warm and they’re larger than his own and they give him a strange, comforting sense of security and he absolutely loves it). The vampire peers up at Erwin to see that yes, he’s grinning. Armin’s found that his own human is quite fond of pestering the shorter vampire, and while he can’t really blame him, he’s never quite grown the balls to try, himself. Levi was very much like a raging mother bear when he was angry.

“Cheese fest?” the brunette challenges, rolling his eyes as Levi stops beside him. “We’re not much—“

“Not helping,” Levi cuts back, glaring red eyes failing entirely at intimidating his human. Eren, instead, just smiles a little, and Levi seemingly gives up, peering back over to his, more or less, hosts. “Well. I guess this whole thing was fun. Playing matchmaker, not so much. Glad nobody important died, I guess. Could’ve done without your little hunter friend, though, Erwin.”

The look Levi gives Erwin could curdle milk or sour cream, Armin suspects.

“He’s not so bad,” Erwin says, shrugging his shoulders. “You’d like him, if he didn’t want to kill you, I mean.”

“If you ever want to change his mind, I’m sure I could set him up with some strong, independent vampire lady,” Levi quips. “That seems to sway you humans pretty damn easily.”

The banter is playful, but it doesn’t last. Armin receives a hug from Eren and a small peck to the forehead from Levi (it’s customary by now, but Erwin still quirks an eyebrow and visibly fights off a grin or a smirk or a laugh or _something,_ just to save the chore that is Levi’s annoyance) before the two are leaving and bidding their goodbyes. They watch as Eren’s car pulls away, retrieved from its hiding place—Eren had hidden it in the trees, away from where wandering kids would’ve found it—before Armin shut the door and turned to Erwin.

“Levi acts like he hates you,” Armin says, reaching up to smooth the collar of Erwin’s button-up. “But he was talking about finding a place near my turf to move into earlier, and it’s definitely just so he and Eren can come over more often.”

“Either that or he definitely hates me and he thinks I’m going to do something stupid,” Erwin says, fixing a small lock of Armin’s hair in return. “There’s not much of a maybe about that one.”

Armin rolls his eyes and smiles, cheeks warm and likely pink and he’s glad he can’t see in a mirror. “Could be either.”

They stand like that, facing each other for quite some time, absently tidying each other, even where they don’t particularly need it. It isn’t until Erwin’s hands find Armin’s hips and Armin’s hands loop very loosely around Erwin’s neck that they both stop, eyes meeting.

“Well, we have the entire damn mansion to ourselves now,” Armin says before he grins and Erwin leans down to kiss him. He leans into it, and another one, and then even another before he steels himself and pulls just slightly out of Erwin’s reach. “What are we even going to do?”

“Celebratory nap?” Erwin offers, pressing another soft kiss to the corner of Armin’s mouth, despite the boy’s efforts to move away. Armin laughs softly.   

“Maybe later. I’m pretty sure Eren got more pomegranates and left them in the kitchen. I think that should be attended to first and foremost.” 


End file.
